Assessment for U.S. engineering programs

Issues influencing current engineering education are reviewed. Chief among them is that the public expects accountability in higher education while, at the same time, industry wants engineering programs to adapt their research and curricula more rapidly to technological advances. These demands may, or may not, represent mutually exclusive objectives. However, educators have finally acknowledged that problems do exist in institutions of higher learning, and that education programs can be measured, compared, and potentially improved. Various agencies and organizations, including the National Research Council have become actively involved in evaluating and comparing the nation's engineering programs, as has the media, particularly U.S. News & World Report. The national rankings in U.S. News & World Report are based on data collected annually on a number of attributes. In this article, we relate their rankings to other factors which are not the attributes except the undergraduate graduation rate. The following are the variables analyzed in this article: 1)graduate rankings, 2) undergraduate rankings, 3) alumni giving rate, 4)undergraduate graduation rate, 5) tuition, and 6) average faculty salaries. By analysing the resulting rankings, the validity of these variables as measures of quality education is confirmed. Further, the significant practical impact of these published institutional comparisons on improving engineering education is established. © 2006 IEEE.