HOUGHTON — College Factual, a website member of USA Today’s College Partner Network, has ranked Michigan Technological University in the top 10 in the nation for bachelor’s degree programs in the general area of natural resources and conservation and fifth in the nation for its forestry programs within natural resources and conservation.
College Factual lists four undergraduate degrees in three areas within the field of natural resources and conservation at Michigan Tech. The areas are natural resources conservation, forestry and wildlife management.
Across all of these specializations, Michigan Tech awarded 39 undergraduate degrees in 2013-14, according to the College Factual report. Of these, 11 were in natural resources conservation, 19 were in forestry and nine were in wildlife management.
Terry Sharik, dean of Tech’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, called the ranking “a tribute to all those in SFRES and Michigan Tech as a whole, who make this a great place to be a student, and it’s also a tribute to our students who have a strong work ethic and represent us well in the workplace.”
Most college rankings are based on surveys of deans, faculty and students. College Factual says its rankings are based on more objective data, including outcomes-based metrics, which College Factual defines as: “Can students in these programs actually make a living after graduation?” In Michigan Tech’s case, the website determined that they can.
Salary data was based in part on information provided by Payscale.com, a website that reported in 2014 that Michigan Tech graduates rank third in the nation for average starting salaries for public research university graduates.