The U of A continued to hold its place among the top 80 public institutions in the nation, while also garnering a strong ranking in business, engineering and nursing, according to the annual U.S. News & World Report ranking of best colleges and universities.

This is the first year U.S. News has included undergraduate nursing programs in the rankings and named the U of A's Eleanor Mann School of Nursing among the top 120 out of 694 programs at both public and private universities and top 90 among public institutions only.

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing offers a number of accredited programs from pre-licensure options to graduate degrees. Recently, current students in the program have been a part of the university's fight against COVID-19, helping distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccinations to members of the campus community.

The U of A's graduation and retention rate ranking also rose six spots to 175 in the country, 78th among public schools. This comes on the heels of the university's six-year graduation rate that increased 2.3 percentage points to 68.5 percent and the one-year retention rate — which measures the number of freshmen who continued their education past their first year — that rose to 84.7 percent, improving from the previous year's 84.2 percent rate.

In other rankings, the Sam M. Walton College of Business continued to rise and is now in the top 40 of all national colleges and universities, ranking nationally at 36th in the nation, 24th among public institutions. It is tied, nationally, with the University of Iowa and University of Rochester, among others.

The U of A College of Engineering rose as well, tying for 96th in the nation among public and private institutions, with a few other universities including BYU, LSU, Mississippi State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma and the University of Kentucky. Among public schools only, the college ranked 60th.

Overall, the U of A ranked 78th among national public schools, joining six other universities at that spot including Kansas State University, Oregon State University and Florida International University.

These new rankings were part of the annual release of "Best Colleges" from U.S. News & World Report. The full rankings of this year's "Best Colleges" can be found on the U.S. News & World Report website.   

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the top 3% of U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research News.