The University of Scranton’s Online Graduate Programs Ranked Among Nation’s Best
The University of Scranton’s online graduate program in education ranked No. 6 in the nation, and its online MBA program ranked No. 39, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 Best Online Education Programs. The lists, published Jan. 15, ranked online programs offered by nonprofit and for-profit institutions in the United States in categories of business, education, engineering, nursing and computer information technology.
Scranton’s online graduate program in education has the highest rank of the 12 Pennsylvania colleges, and the five Jesuit universities listed by U.S. News. Scranton’s online graduate program in business was among just seven colleges in Pennsylvania and five Jesuit universities listed.
For the 2013 Best Online Education Programs ranking, U.S. News reviewed statistical information submitted by schools. The ranking criteria differed by category. For graduate programs in education, the ranking was based on admissions selectivity (30 percent), including student GRE scores, GPA and acceptance rates; student engagement (30 percent), including graduation rates, class size and best practices such as frequencies of instructor feedback to student participation, collaborative coursework requirements, instructor response times, among other factors; faculty credentials and training (20 percent); and student services and technology (20 percent), including student indebtedness.
For online graduate business programs, the ranking is based on student engagement (28 percent), which looked at graduation rates, accreditations, class size, best practices such as frequencies of instructor feedback to student participation, collaborative coursework, instructor response times and other factors; admission selectivity (25 percent), which looked at GMAT scores, GPA, acceptance rates, among other factors; peer reputation score (25 percent); faculty credentials and training (11 percent); and student services and technology (11 percent).
The University of Scranton offers online a Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) in general business, enterprise resource planning, healthcare management and operations management, and a Master of Science degree (MS) in the education fields of curriculum and instruction and educational administration (K-12).
For technology, recruitment and marketing support, The University of Scranton partners with Deltak for the online MBA degree program, as well as Bisk Education for online graduate education degree programs.
The 2013 Best Online Education Programs can be seen at usnews.com. According to U.S. News, a printed guidebook will not be published, however highlights of these rankings will be included in its “Best Graduate Schools 2014” guidebook.
This is the second year that U.S. News published a national rankings of online graduate degree programs. However, the U.S. News ranking of online programs last year used different categories and methodology. In the 2012 listing, The University of Scranton ranked No. 1 nationally for online MBA programs and ranked No. 2 nationally for online graduate education programs for “Teaching Practices and Student Engagement.” For 2013, U.S. News just listed schools by an overall rank.
In other rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, Scranton has been named as one of the top 10 “Best Regional Universities” in the North for 19 consecutive years and was among just 49 up-and-coming schools in the nation in the 2013 edition. Scranton is also in its “America’s Best Graduate Schools” guidebook.
