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Posted on Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 12:40 p.m.

University of Michigan law, education schools climb in rankings, while other programs fall slightly

By Cindy Heflin

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The University of Michigan's law school ranked 7th on U.S. News & World Report's latest list.

File photo

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include last year's ranking of the University of Michigan's School of Education.

University of Michigan graduate schools once again rank highly on U.S. News & World Report's annual list of the country's best.

U-M's law school rose two places in the rankings, from 9th last year to 7th this year. And the education school climbed from 14th to 9th place, but its medical, business and engineering schools all dropped from one to six places.

The university has traditionally said that though it is pleased with its ordinarily high rankings on such lists, it does not regard them as an important measure of its programs.

Among law schools, Yale held the top spot in the magazine's rankings. U-M was tied for 7th with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

On the list of medical schools, U-M was ranked 10th in research in a tie with Columbia University, four spots below its 6th place ranking last year.

Harvard had the top research school in the country, according to the list. For primary care, the magazine ranked U-M 20th in a tie with the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The University of Washington in Seattle was ranked first.

Michigan State University ranked 14th in primary care this year. U-M came in at 14th on the list last year.

U-M's engineering school ranked 9th on the list, one spot below last year. MIT held the top spot on that list.

The U-M's Ross School of Business was tied for 14th place with the University of California, Los Angeles in the rankings. U-M was 12th on the list last year.

Among education schools, U-M was tied for 9th place this year with the University of Washington. Last year the school was ranked 14th. Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., came in first on that list. MSU ranked 17th.

Comments

dextermom

Thu, Mar 17, 2011 : 1:06 p.m.

So, the School of Ed. raised 5 places - and it rates one sentence at the end of the piece, like an after thought! Luckily there was something in the headline or who would have noticed.

Tom Joad

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 7:12 p.m.

A plethora of articles have been written on the dismal prospects of finding a job after graduating from law school and the crushing debt of law school loans. MSU, Cooley Law School? I don't think so...

braggslaw

Thu, Mar 17, 2011 : 12:15 a.m.

Interesting how far Wayne state has fallen for law school Ranked below michigan and state

Marshall Applewhite

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 9:35 p.m.

Totally agree. Unless attending on full scholarship or being able to fund it yourself, it's simply not a great idea to attend one of these schools. They give you all these misleading figures about starting salary and job prospects to get you in the door, but you only see a couple students in each class actually graduate with the jobs promised.

trespass

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 5:58 p.m.

The Medical School dropped from 6 to 10 and from 14 to 20 despite having a record year for research grants and tuition. Does that tell you that spending extraordinary amounts of money on research does not translate into better teaching, which is the primary goal of a university. Competing for the relatively few faculty that have federal grants just keeps on jacking up tuition without turning out better doctors. Why do we keep re-electing Regents who take us down this path?

DagnyJ

Thu, Mar 17, 2011 : 11:39 a.m.

The rankings are about buzz and controversy. In many respects they are meaningless. Whether you learn anything has to do with how much you put into studying, not how many research dollars the school has.

ex734

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 6:58 p.m.

No, this tells me that the ranking system is somewhat arbitrary and more geared towards generating controversy, talk, and sales.

braggslaw

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 5:02 p.m.

Never knew MSU had such a good med school....

braggslaw

Thu, Mar 17, 2011 : 12:09 a.m.

Still very surprising moo u ranked above michigan

Marshall Applewhite

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 : 9:31 p.m.

MSU is a good med school for primary care, but I'm not sure if it even has programs for anything more sophisticated than that.