For more than 150 years Penn State has been a leader in higher education, as shown by rankings from those who monitor academe from the outside. Programs in all five departments in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences are consistently rated highly in many rankings, including U.S. News & World Report. Here are a few examples of recent rankings, primarily relating to our academic standing.
U.S. News and World Report Rankings
Graduate Programs
- 3rd - Petroleum Engineering (2025)
- 3rd - Environmental Sciences (2023)
- 4th - Geochemistry (2023)
- 7th - Earth Sciences overall (2023)
- 7th - Paleontology (2022)
- 9th - Geophysics and Seismology (2023)
- 9th - Materials Engineering (2025)
- 10th - Geology (2023)
Undergraduate Programs
- 4th - Petroleum Engineering (2025)
- 10th - Materials Engineering (2025)
- 15th - Environmental Systems Engineering (2024)
- 20th - Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs (2025)
Best Global Universities
- 42nd - Geosciences
- 46th - Materials Science
- 101st - Energy and Fuels
- 105th - Engineering
Online Education
Penn State World Campus's online programs are among more than 1,200 programs surveyed by U.S. News and World Report and are ranked best in the nation. Only regionally accredited institutions whose programs are offered mostly or entirely online were evaluated.
- 6th - Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs
- 7th - Best Online Graduate Education Programs
- 8th - Best Online Bachelor's Programs
Note that specialty rankings are not available in all disciplines at the undergraduate level, and not all disciplines are ranked every year.
QS World University 2025 Rankings by Subject
Visit https://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings to learn more about rankings by subject.
- 10th - Minerals and Mining Engineering
- 27th - Petroleum Engineering
- 33rd - Earth and Marine Sciences
- 36th - Geophysics
- 37th - Geology
- 37th - Materials Sciences
- 47th - Environmental Sciences
- 51st - Geography
National Science Foundation Research Expenditure Rankings
Penn State’s research enterprise ranks 22nd nationally in the breadth and depth of its expertise, according to the latest National Science Foundation rankings of Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) research expenditures by key fields and subfields in science and engineering, for FY 2020 released in January 2022.
EMS programs ranked in the top twenty-five are:
- 1st - Materials Science (Physical Sciences Subfield)
- 2nd - Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (Engineering Subfield)
- 4th - Engineering Overall
- 10th - Atmospheric Science and Meteorology (Environmental Sciences Subfield)
- 12th - Geological and Earth Sciences (Environmental Sciences Subfield)
- 14th - Physical Sciences Overall
- 23rd - Environmental Sciences
