Pulling Rank: Continued Emphasis on Excellence Helps Leeds Shine in U.S. News

For the fifth straight year, CU Boulder is listed among nation’s top 25 business schools. ​​

A public business school finding itself regularly ranked among the top 25 in the country could perhaps afford some complacency. 

Leeds, however, is not that kind of business school. 

Despite earning its fifth consecutive top 25 designation in U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the best public business schools, Leeds continues to aggressively grow, having made continued investment and improvements in its faculty hiring, student recruiting, physical infrastructure and connections to the business community.

That’s helped keep Leeds among the nation’s best, ranking 23rd among public business schools and No. 34 overall in U.S. News’ 2023 list of Best Colleges. 

“I’m excited to see the recognition from U.S. News and our peers in higher education of the work we’ve done to improve the academic experience at Leeds,” said Yonca Ertimur, acting dean of Leeds. “From bringing on top-quality faculty to recruiting incredibly gifted classes of students, Leeds is committed to remaining a destination for the brightest minds in business.” 

In fact, in just the last year, Leeds celebrated the ribbon-cutting on the new Rustandy Building, physically linking the business and engineering disciplines at CU Boulder; helped secure outcomes for a record number of graduates; created new collaborative spaces for its four academic Centers of Excellence and the Business Research Division; hired 11 new tenure-track faculty with impressive research and real-world credentials; and welcomed a highly competitive incoming class of first-year students. 

For those faculty joining Leeds, the school’s ambition to be a top destination for scholars and to do meaningful research was a major selling point. 

“The culture here is unique—it seems pure and scholarly,” said Amit Bhattacharjee, who joined Leeds’ marketing faculty from INSEAD this fall. “There’s a sense of joy and discovery here that’s not present everywhere. I’m excited because it feels like it’s going to be professionally rejuvenating.” 

Similarly, the career support and mentorship offered to business students—both points of pride for the Leeds school—continue to elevate its reputation in a crowded landscape. Jesús Soto, a first-year student from Boulder, has already started one business; he chose Leeds for its emphasis on entrepreneurship—in research and teaching, but also in the school’s ties to the local community. 

“Leeds has an amazing entrepreneurship program, and all these programs to help you launch your business,” Soto said. “Leeds has an outstanding entrepreneurial culture, and they provide students with various programs for them to scale their ideas. There is an abundance of clubs and organizations that offer a strong community for entrepreneurs to participate in co-curricular activities and receive meaningful insights from faculty, professionals and fellow entrepreneurs.”

READ MORE: U.S. News' Best Business Schools

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