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Global, National Rankings Highlight Ohio State Public Affairs Excellence

News Type Public Address

Global and national rankings released this year affirm excellence in public affairs education and research both university-wide and at the Glenn College.

The Ohio State University is ranked 7th in public administration out of 200 universities from around the world, according to ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s 2022 report released by the Academic Rankings of World Universities. 

“Ohio State has consistently ranked highly in public administration among all universities over the last five years,” said John Glenn College of Public Affairs Dean Trevor Brown, noting that the university placed 13th in 2018; 10th in 2019; 6th in 2020; 8th in 2021; and now 7th in 2022. “This is impressive accomplishment of sustained excellence.” 

This ranking includes public administration research produced by Glenn College faculty, doctoral students and research staff as well as scholars in other colleges and departments in the university.   

While the U.S. News & World Report rankings are reputational, the Shanghai Rankings are a composite of:  

• the volume of publications by the university in top impact factor journals in an academic subject;  

• the volume of publications in top academic subject journals as identified by a team of experts;  

• citation impact; and  

• the degree of international collaboration in published peer reviewed manuscripts.  

Three academic disciplines at Ohio State are ranked in the top 10: communication (#2); public administration (#7); and sociology (#8). Ohio State is the third-highest ranked American university in public administration, behind Indiana University (#5) and Arizona State University (#6); and ahead of Florida State University (#8), Rutgers University-Newark (#10) and the University of Georgia (#10) in the top 10. 

This year more than 1,800 out of 5,000 universities across 96 countries and regions are listed in the rankings in 54 subjects across natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences.  

ShanghaiRanking Consultancy is a fully independent organization dedicating to research on higher education intelligence and consultation. It has been the official publisher of the Academic Ranking of World Universities since 2009. 

In the U.S. News & World Report 2023 Best Graduate School rankings, the John Glenn College of Public Affairs is ranked 20th and among the top 10% of public affairs graduate school programs.

The college’s rankings increased in four specialty areas: nonprofit management, local government management, social policy, and public finance, the latter rising 11 slots from 31 to 20.

“Our faculty and staff have done a tremendous job of delivering value to students across our three graduate degree programs in the face of continued stress and disruption,” said Brown. “It’s invigorating to have our peers affirm our collective efforts.”

The Glenn College ranked specialty areas are public management and leadership (#8), nonprofit management (#12), environmental policy (#13), local government management (#15), urban policy (#18), public policy analysis (#19), public finance and budgeting (#20), and social policy (#21).