UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State ranked in 46 out of 52 subjects in the 2025 World University Rankings by Subject, released March 12 by London-based QS, one of the major three international organizations that annually rank academic institutions.
For 2025, QS ranked 1,747 institutions across 55 subjects in five broad disciplines. Penn State offers programs in 52 of the 55 subjects that QS reviewed.
Penn State had a strong showing worldwide, ranking in the top 10 in mineral and mining engineering for the first time since 2021. The University ranked in the top 25 in three subject areas; in the top 50 in 15 subjects; and in the top 100 in 36 subjects.
The 15 subject areas in which Penn State ranked in the top 50 worldwide are:
- Mineral and mining engineering (10)
- Sports-related subjects (14)
- Hospitality and leisure management (23)
- Petroleum engineering (27)
- Education (31)
- Earth and marine sciences (33)
- Geophysics (36)
- Communication and media studies (37)
- Geology (37)
- Materials science (37)
- Psychology (42)
- Mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering (43)
- Environmental sciences (47)
- Marketing (50)
- Nursing (50)
Penn State also showcased its interdisciplinarity, continuing to rank in the top 75 in the world in the broad subject areas of natural sciences, social sciences and management, and engineering and technology.
The QS subject rankings are based on academic and employer reputation surveys; research output, sourced from information analytics company Elsevier; and international research network, which examines a university’s sustained international research collaboration.
The release of the 2025 QS subject rankings follows the June 2024 release of the overall 2025 QS World University Rankings, in which Penn State tied at No. 89 in the world, placing the University in the top 6% worldwide among the more than 1,500 institutions ranked by QS.
The QS rankings are considered one of the three most respected international university ranking systems, along with the rankings compiled by Times Higher Education and the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
For more information, contact Richard Spicer, assistant director for Global Outreach, at rks5111@psu.edu.
Penn State receives highest QS Stars rating at five stars
Penn State also participates in the QS Stars rating process, and is rated at 5 stars overall as well as for teaching, employability, research, facilities, inclusiveness, innovation and knowledge transfer, among other criteria.
Developed by QS to provide universities with an additional avenue to publicly highlight their strengths, the highest rating (5 stars) is awarded to those universities that, according to QS, display exceptional performance and quality standards. The QS Stars process aims to offer potential students an innovative way to use their individual priorities to help narrow down their choice of schools via the QS system.