By Jordan Schraeder in Promote & Protect on |

A little over a year ago, Forbes called UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering a “secret weapon” of Austin’s growth in the field of innovation. And now—thanks to a multitude of college rankings—the secret is out.

In the latest U.S. World & News Report Rankings, the Cockrell School bested the University’s 45th-overall honor by a mile. Five majors landed in the top 10: environmental engineering was ranked fifth; civil, sixth; chemical, seventh; and mechanical and chemical both landed at ninth best in the nation.

Internationally, the entire engineering program landed in the sixth spot, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities. In addition to outplacing Ivy Leaguers like Cornell and Princeton, Cockrell also took top honors for UT—the next-closest-ranking program was social sciences at 18th.

And college-rankers aren’t the only ones taking notice—the National Science Foundation recently made a $27.5 million commitment to the school for the creation of “Stampede,” a supercomputer to be built by the Texas Advanced Computing Center in partnership with Dell and Intel.

Stampede will enable scientists and engineers to solve the most challenging problems in their fields, including climate modeling and the construction of safer airplanes.

This contribution to the science community is one of the reasons UT landed in the 19th spot on Washington Monthly’s rankings, which were based on how much each university was giving back to society. The number of science and engineering PhD’s awarded at UT came in 11th in the nation. Cheers!

Photo courtesy Flickr user rutlo.