The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked 39th overall among 438 private and public doctoral schools and 13th among public universities in U.S. News’ 2025 Best Colleges Rankings released Tuesday.
UW-Madison’s overall ranking dropped slightly from 35th in 2024 but still stayed 10 places higher than its 49th-place ranking in 2019. Its ranking among public universities fell one spot from 12th last year.
This year’s U.S. News rankings this year prioritized what it called a school’s “social mobility,” or its academic and professional success based on debt and earnings post-graduation. Other major factors include faculty research, value, standardized test scores, resource availability and opportunity.
UW-Madison’s engineering program ranked 13th, and the School of Business program ranked 18th overall. The real estate program in the Wisconsin School of Business was ranked first in the nation.
The university’s computer science, economics, nursing and psychology undergraduate programs also ranked in the top 30.
“We are proud that we deliver a high-quality education across a great variety of disciplines, and that success continues to be recognized in these rankings,” said UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin in a press release. “That said, rankings are just one of many measures of any school’s success, including ours.”
