photo by: Shawn Valverde/Special to the Journal-World

The University of Kansas campus is pictured in this aerial photo from September 2023.

The University of Kansas’ graduate programs in paleontology and special education maintained their top rankings in the country, but a government management program that had been No. 1 for more than 25 years fell a couple of spots.

U.S. News & World Report included 55 KU graduate programs in its recently-released Best Graduate Schools rankings.

KU’s paleontology program — which uses an extensive fossil collection to study the history of the world — ranked No. 1 among public universities. That’s the same spot the program had in last year’s rankings.

The university’s graduate degree program in special education also was ranked No. 1 among public universities, just as it was a year ago.

KU’s most consistently ranked No. 1 program, though, fell from the top of the list. KU’s Local Government Management Program — which attracts students from across the country who aspire to be city managers, county administrators or other types of officials who lead government institutions — had been the No. 1 ranked program in the country since 1998. The latest rankings put the program at No. 3 among public universities. Arizona State and North Carolina ended up passing KU in the rankings.

Overall, though, KU saw an increase in the number of university programs that received a top 50 ranking from U.S. News. Last year, 48 graduate programs received a top 50 ranking, while 55 garnered such a ranking in the latest report.

The number of programs that ranked in the top 10, however, fell slightly. KU had eight such programs in the most recent ranking, down from 10 a year ago.

Here’s a look at the list of KU programs ranked in the top 50 public university programs in the most recent edition of the report: Paleontology, No. 1; Special Education, No. 1; Local Government Management, No. 3; Education, No. 8; Physical Therapy, No. 8; Public Management and Leadership, No. 8; Environmental Law, No. 9; Speech Language Pathology, No. 10; Petroleum Engineering, No. 11; Public Affairs, No. 11; Occupational Therapy, No. 13; Public Finance and Budgeting, No. 13; Urban Policy, No. 13; Audiology, No. 14; Dispute Resolution Law, No. 18; Legal Writing, No. 19; Clinical Child Psychology, No. 21; Full-Time Law, No. 21; Trial Advocacy Law, No. 21; Social Work, No. 22; Management Business, No. 24; Nursing-Midwifery, No. 24; Pharmacy, No. 24; Full-Time MBA, No. 25; Nursing-Anesthesia, No. 25; Biostatistics, No. 26; Entrepreneurship, No. 26; Clinical Psychology, No. 29; Healthcare Management, No. 29; Contracts-Commercial Law, No. 30; History, No. 30; Psychology, No. 32; Criminal Law, No. 33; Business-Corporate Law, No. 36; International Law, No. 36; Aerospace Engineering, No. 37; Constitutional Law, No. 37; Biology, No. 39; Sociology, No. 39; Chemistry, No. 40; Finance, No. 40; Political Science, No. 41; English, No. 42; Environmental Engineering, No. 44; Intellectual Property Law, No. 44; Mathematics, No. 44; Bioengineering, No. 45; Economics, No. 47; Business Analytics, No. 48; Tax Law, No. 48; Health Care Law, No. 49; Chemical Engineering, No. 50; Earth Sciences, No. 50; Fine Arts, No. 50; Mechanical Engineering, No. 50.

Medical schools no longer receive specific rankings from U.S. News, but rather are placed into tiers. KU was one of 16 medical schools that was placed in tier No. 1 for its primary care programs. The KU Medical Center was placed in tier No. 2 as a research institution. Both rankings were unchanged from a year ago.