Fresno State ranks atop CSU; amongst highest in West in national university rankings
Fresno State – with a mission to educate and empower students for success – ranked No. 36 in Washington Monthly’s 2022 National University Rankings of colleges and universities that best serve the country in the areas of social mobility, research and public service.
The University also ranked No. 22 in the Best Bang for the Buck: West category, published Monday, for how well it helps non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices. Washington Monthly, known for its annual rankings of American colleges and universities, has published its list of top schools for the past 18 years with what it calls “a different kind of college ranking,” calling attention to colleges based on their contribution to the public good, not prestige or wealth.
This is the seventh straight year Fresno State has ranked among the top 50 national universities among 442 total – and the seventh straight year Fresno State has been the highest-ranked campus in the California State University system.
At No. 36, Fresno State ranks alongside notable Pac 12 Conference institutions, including No. 1 Stanford, No. 9 University of California, Berkeley; No. 19 Washington; and No. 21 UCLA. Fresno State set a record-high in research grants for the 2020-21 academic year, receiving 356 grants for $48.2 million. The University recently earned R2 designation as a “Doctoral University – High Research Activity” by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, highlighting a significant commitment to growing research activities. Fresno State awarded 76 doctoral degrees in the past academic year. The University offers doctoral degrees in nursing, physical therapy and educational leadership.
Students, faculty and staff continued their long-standing culture of service by providing more than 1 million hours of service to community organizations for the 13th year in a row. The Central Valley, which is represented by the green V featured on Fresno State’s Bulldog logo, spans from Bakersfield in the south to Sacramento in the north – an area roughly the size of the state of Tennessee. As the only major city in the U.S. within an hour’s drive of three national parks, Fresno is the hub of the most productive agricultural region in the world.
Fresno State continues to show its commitment to education and the community in various ways, including:
- Three faculty and one student earned Fulbright research awards this year. Sydney Fox, a biochemistry major who graduated this past spring, earned the Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to conduct research at Reykjavik University in Iceland. Dr. Benjamin Boone (music) will study musical pedagogy and create and record new music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Dr. Melanie Ram (political science) will research sub-regional intergovernmental organizations that emerged in Europe since the end of the Cold War in Trieste, Italy, at the University of Zagreb and the University of Bucharest. Dr. Devendra Sharma (communication) will research swang-nautanki, a folk opera tradition in Northern India, and its traditional akhārās, the swang-nautanki community performance groups.
- The Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology received $18.75 million in one-time funding from the state to provide infrastructure needed to build programs that prepare future generations for regenerative agriculture practices. This will build long-term stability for food and agricultural systems in the face of changing climate patterns.
- Sociology Professor Dr. Amber Crowell received a $350,000 National Science Foundation grant to analyze long-term patterns and trends of residential segregation in urban areas, connecting present-day segregation patterns to their historical roots in a project called “Mapping the Origins of Segregation using GIS Resources.”
Fresno State is also among the nation’s best colleges when it comes to quality, affordability and outcomes ranking No. 29 in Money’s 2022 Best Colleges list announced May 16.