UM Griz Take on MSU Bobcats in Worldwide University Rankings, Who Won?

The Center for World University Rankings recently gave both the University of Montana and Montana State University Bozeman high marks, placing the institutions in the top 2.5% of degree granting institutions worldwide.

"There are over 25,000 degree granting institutions of higher education in the world and the University of Montana was just recently ranked 585 out of that over 25,000," said University of Montana Provost Perry Brown. "Within the U.S. Institutions that were ranked, were number 174 out of the 936 institutions in the U.S."

The ranking system assess a number of factors.

"Quality of education, alumni employment, the quality of the faculty, their publications, their influence, their citations, the kind of impacts they've had, the number of patents that may have come out of the University, and a number of things like that," Giese said. "They are really looking at a lot of things that are publicly available."

The University of Montana improved its ranking this year, but not enough to catch up with its rival Montana State University. MSU edged out UM by four points in the national rankings with a score of 170 to 174. There is a bigger spread when the rest of the world is thrown into the mix. Worldwide, UM ranked 585 and MSU ranked 556.

UM actually beat MSU in a number of catagories including Publication Rank, Citations Rank, and Alumni Employment, while the two tied on Quality of Faculty. MSU beat UM in Number of Patents, Influence and Quality of Education, but in the end, the two institutions were only seperated by .07% in their final ranking.