Ten Kansas University graduate specialties or schools are in the top 10 of public universities nationwide, according to U.S. News and World Report’s 2016 Best Graduate Schools Rankings released this week.

KU’s City Management and Urban Policy program and its Special Education program are No. 1 among public universities, according to KU. Others in the top 10 of public universities are Occupational Therapy, second; Public Management Administration, third; Public Affairs, fourth; and Clinical Child Psychology, fifth; Speech-Language-Pathology, sixth; Audiology, seventh; Physical Therapy, ninth; and the School of Education, ninth.

Those highlights put KU’s graduate specialties and schools higher than U.S. News’ overall lists, which rank public and private schools together.

For example, KU’s Special Education program is second to Vanderbilt University and the School of Education ranks 17th overall on the U.S. News list.

KU spokesman Jack Martin said the university believes comparing itself to other public schools more accurately portrays how it stacks up.

“They have similar missions, similar funding streams and provide opportunity for better comparison than would necessarily be the case for a private institution,” he said.

In total, 44 KU graduate programs appear in the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools Rankings, according to the university’s count.

KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said the rankings show KU’s “breadth and depth of excellence,” calling it an example of what a flagship research university brings to the state it serves.

“Our graduate programs educate leaders who will go on to make contributions in essentially all disciplines, in both the private sector and academia,” she said in a prepared statement, “and those contributions directly benefit the people of Kansas and our society.”

Among highlights from this year’s report, KU noted that the biggest leap by an individual program was the part-time MBA program, which rose to be tied for 39th among public universities. The schools of engineering and law climbed for the third consecutive year. In health-related fields, nursing rose four spots to enter the top 20 among public university programs.

U.S. News and World Report ranks the disciplines of business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing annually. They are evaluated on standardized test scores of newly enrolled students, employment outcomes of graduates and other criteria.

This is how KU’s schools landed overall, among both public and private institutions, according to U.S. News and World Report:

• Business — 88

• Education — 17

• Engineering — 90 (Note: Kansas State University was a few spots behind, at 94th)

• Law — 67

• Medicine (Research) — 67

• Medicine (Primary Care) — 25

• Nursing — 30

KU v. other public universities

These are the KU graduate programs and schools ranked in the top 50 among public universities in the 2016 U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate Schools Rankings, according to KU:

1. City Management & Urban Policy

1. Special Education

2. Occupational Therapy

3. Public Management Administration

4. Public Affairs

5. Clinical Child Psychology

6. Speech-Language-Pathology

7. Audiology

9. Physical Therapy

9. School of Education

12. Medicine – Family Medicine

12. Public Finance & Budgeting

15. Printmaking

15. Social Work

17. Clinical Psychology

20. Medicine – Primary Care

20. Nursing

20. Pharmacy

23. Psychology

25. Healthcare Management

26. Aerospace Engineering

27. History

31. Political Science

36. English

36. School of Law

37. Medicine – Research

37. Earth Sciences – Geology

38. Biological Sciences (see: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Biosciences)

38. Fine Arts

39. Civil Engineering

39. Part-time MBA

41. Mathematics

43. Sociology

44. Chemistry

45. Economics

46. Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering

47. Electrical Engineering

50. Mechanical Engineering