Nebraska Cornhuskers ranked dead last in the Big Ten academically

Nebraska Cornhuskers athletic director Trev Alberts speaks at the introductory press conference (Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports)
Nebraska Cornhuskers athletic director Trev Alberts speaks at the introductory press conference (Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports) /
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While it’s not exactly a shock that the Nebraska Cornhuskers are ranked this low academically, it’s still not fun to be reminded.

There’s a ton of positive news floating around the Nebraska Cornhuskers these days. After all, other than the season, this is the best part of the Nebraska football calendar. The players and coaches are gearing up and getting ready. They’re looking to make a bowl game for the first time since 2016.

But before we get too carried away with constant positivity, how about a little negativity to cleanse the palate? The newest ratings of every university in the country from US News & World Report released recently and the news is … terrible when it comes to the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Nebraska Cornhuskers at the bottom of the barrel

Before we dive into just how bad things are for the Huskers, lets look at the site’s own explanation as to how they arrived at the rankings:

"“We calculated 10 distinct overall rankings where colleges and universities were grouped by their academic missions. For each ranking, the sum of weighted, normalized values across 17 indicators of academic quality determine each school’s overall score and, by extension, its overall rank.”"

So, taking all those things into consideration, how did the Nebraska Cornhuskers rank? On its face, 151st in the entire country doesn’t sound that bad. The problem is that the Big Ten is a conference that absolutely thinks of academics as very important.

That’s demonstrated by the fact that 13 of the conference’s schools are ranked in the Top 100 in the nation. Unfortunately, NU is the one school currently in the conference that doesn’t make the cut.

The even worse news of Nebraska being dead last in the conference is that they aren’t really close to number 13. Iowa is second worst in the conference, and they are 83rd in the nation.

Want even more bad news? If you count USC and UCLA, the Huskers are 16th in a 16-team league.

Here’s the Big Ten’s rankings from top to bottom:

  1. Northwestern (10th in the country)
  2. UCLA (tied for 20th)
  3. Michigan (tied for 25th)
  4. USC (tied for 25th
  5. Wisconsin (38th)
  6. Illinois (41st)
  7. Ohio State (49th)
  8. Purdue (51st)
  9. Rutgers (tied for 55th)
  10. Maryland (tied for 55th)
  11. Minnesota (62nd)
  12. Indiana (72nd)
  13. Michigan State (tied for 77th)
  14. Penn State (tied for 77th)
  15. Iowa (83rd)
  16. Nebraska (151st)

When you consider that one of the Nebraska Cornhuskers regents recently talked about the school was “never” going to be impressive academically, it’s not a shock they are indeed not impressive academically compared to the rest of the conference.