School of Education Holds on to Top-10 National Ranking in Online Education

This year's top-10 placement marks the fourth year in a row for the School of Education in the online education category.

ALBANY, N.Y. (Jan. 21, 2020) — The School of Education (SOE) reaffirmed its standing among the top providers of online graduate education in the nation on Tuesday, with the release of the 2020 rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

The 8th place ranking, the same as one year ago, was the school’s fourth straight placement in the nation’s top 10 among more than 300 U.S. universities. It remains ranked as the top school or college in New York State for online education.

“The U.S. News and World Report’s latest rankings further evidences that the University at Albany is New York’s leading public school of education as well as a top ten provider of online graduate education in the country,” said Jason Lane, professor and interim dean of the school.

“For over 175 years, we have been providing the Capital Region and all of New York with world-class academic programs in the areas of teacher education, educational policy, higher education and mental health.”

Professor and Chair of Literacy Teaching & Learning Virginia Goatley, center, sits amid students in her Current Research in Literacy course, which uses the distance learning tool Kubi (screens shown in the foreground).

SOE offers 15 graduate programs online, ranging from graduate certificates to two new PhD programs — two of only a handful of PhD programs in the state that are fully online. Focusing on literacy and curriculum and instruction, the PhD offerings use specialized technology called Kubis to allow students on campus and across America to learn with each other at the same time.

"Half of the class may be sitting on campus, while the others are piped in using technology from locations such as New Jersey, Tennessee and Alaska, so that they are all seamlessly engaged in discussion about educational issues," said Lane.

Peter Shea, professor of Educational Theory & Practice and associate provost for Online Learning, said the education school’s high ranking attests to a continued investment in online education across the University, which is now being reflected in several of the institution’s other schools and colleges.

“UAlbany has spent the last five years focusing on ensuring the quality of our online courses and programs,” said Shea. “We have applied new resources to faculty development, technology infrastructure and curriculum design, while maintaining a low student-to-faculty ratio in our online graduate programs.

“This relentless focus on quality is clearly evident by this year’s ranking for our School of Education. I congratulate the hardworking faculty and graduates of these excellent programs.”

Through SOE, individuals seeking to purse teaching careers can do so online in a range of areas, including early childhood, childhood, literacy, computing education, TESOL, curriculum development and instructional technology. The school also has online offerings for those aspiring to become high-impact organization leaders at educational institutions, associations, government or private international education companies.

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