Outreach

Penn State recognized in first U.S. News online education rankings

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State's online campus, the World Campus, earned an “Honor Roll” recognition for graduate-level education programs in the inaugural U.S. News 2012 Top Online Education Program Rankings. In lieu of number rankings, U.S. News created honor rolls highlighting programs that consistently rank in the top third among their peers.

In addition, several World Campus programs ranked in the top 15 percent for various categories, including teaching practices and student engagement, student services and technology, faculty credentials and training, and admissions selectivity. These top 15 percent rankings included:

-- Bachelor’s programs: Student services and technology.

-- Graduate programs in business: Teaching practices and student engagement, student services and technology.

-- Graduate programs in education: Teaching practices and student engagement, Admissions selectivity.

-- Graduate programs in engineering: Teaching practices and student engagement.

-- Graduate programs in computer information technology: Faculty credentials and training.

“We are extremely pleased that the quality of Penn State World Campus programs has been recognized across a variety of dimensions in the latest U.S. News and World Report ranking on online programs," said Wayne Smutz, executive director of Penn State World Campus and associate vice president for Academic Outreach. "All of us at Penn State involved in online education look forward to continuing our delivery of high quality educational experiences for online students and to dedicate ourselves to constant improvement as we have since the World Campus was founded in 1997.”

Full details of the U.S. News 2012 Top Online Education Program Rankings and methodologies can be seen at http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education online.

Nationally, online enrollments continue to outpace on-campus enrollments, according to a 2011 report by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), an association of higher education institutions and organizations engaged in online learning. Online learning grew at 10 percent last year, compared with 2 percent growth in the overall higher education student population. In fall 2010, about 6.1 million students were enrolled in at least one online course.

In 2011, Sloan-C named Penn State the winner of The Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Education Award which recognizes a university that has designed and implemented an outstanding and comprehensive online learning curriculum.

The first online courses debuted at Penn State in 1998. Today, Penn State's World Campus offers more than 70 graduate, undergraduate and professional education programs in convenient online formats to more than 10,300 students worldwide.

To learn more about what Penn State World Campus has to offer, visit http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/ online.

Penn State World Campus specializes in adult online education, delivering more than 70 of Penn State's most highly regarded graduate, undergraduate and professional education programs through convenient online formats. World Campus is part of Penn State Outreach, the largest unified outreach organization in American higher education, which serves more than 5 million people each year, delivering more than 2,000 programs to people in all 67 Pennsylvania counties, all 50 states and 114 countries worldwide.

Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated January 10, 2012