Carl R. Ice College of Engineering boasts best employment, internship numbers among Kansas universities
Thursday, March 7, 2024
A student speaks with an employer at K-State's 2024 Engineering Expo in February. More than 120 companies attended the event looking to fill full-time, internship and co-op positions. | Download this photo.
MANHATTAN — According to enrollment data released by the Kansas Board of Regents, the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University remains the top choice in Kansas for students pursuing an engineering degree.
K-State's engineering college leads the list of state institutions with the largest number of graduates landing a job in Kansas and the largest number of students participating in internships by a wide margin.
Additionally, the college boasts the highest starting salary for engineering graduates employed in Kansas at $65,890 and a 97% placement rate for undergraduates, which includes those who take a job in the industry as well as those who choose to continue their education.
These metrics, designed as a way for Kansas institutions to track progress on the goals set forth in the University Engineering Initiative Act, are released each year and track a variety of enrollment and employment data points for K-State, the University of Kansas and Wichita State University. While the primary goal of the program is to increase the number of engineering graduates in the state, when the act was renewed in 2021 for an additional 10 years, an additional focus of increasing the number of engineering graduates living and working in Kansas and contributing to state and local economies was added.
For faculty and staff within the college, ensuring that K-State engineering students are able to make connections with potential Kansas-based employers long before graduation and designing coursework that involves a high degree of applied learning became even more important.
"One of the reasons our academic programs are so successful is a strong emphasis on each student leaving K-State well prepared for a long and fulfilling engineering career," said Matt O'Keefe, dean of engineering and LeRoy C. and Aileen H. Paslay chair in engineering at K-State. "We have partnerships with many employers of engineers in Kansas, and what is evident to us from conversations with them is that K-State engineers are in high demand because of the outstanding education they receive as students in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering."
While K-State continues to lead the way in several of these employment metrics, the college is also leading among state institutions in total number of enrolled students, total number of in-state enrolled students and total number of engineering graduates.
