New 2014 U.S. News Tax Rankings

Here are the new 2014 U.S. News Tax Rankings, along with last year's rankings:

2014 Rank	Tax Program	2013 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Georgetown	3
3	Florida	2
4	Northwestern	4
5	Miami	9
5	USC	12
7	Boston University	6
7	Loyola-L.A.	10
7	Virginia	6
10	UCLA	6
10	U. Washington	n/r
12	Harvard	5
13	Columbia	12
14	Michigan	11
14	San Diego	14
16	Boston College	14
17	UC-Hastings	n/r
18	Houston	n/r
n/r	Texas	14
n/r	Pennsylvania	17
n/r	Stanford	17
n/r	Villanova	17
n/r	Chicago	20
n/r	Denver	21
n/r	Indiana	21
n/r	Duke	23
n/r	Florida State	23

The biggest movers are:

• +7:  USC (#5)
• +4   Miami (#5)
• +3:  Loyola-L.A. (#7)
• -7:   Harvard (#17)
• -4:   UCLA (#10)  
• -3:   Michigan (#14)

Washington (#10), UC-Hastings (#17), and Houston (#18) were unraked last year and are ranked this year. Texas (#14), Pennsylvania (#17), Stanford (#17), Villanova (#17), Chicago (#20), Denver #21), Indiana (#21), Duke (#23), and Florida State (#23) were ranked last year and are unranked this year.

Here are the rankings of the graduate tax programs, along with last year's rankings.

2014 Rank	Grad Tax Program	2013 Rank
1	NYU	1
2	Georgetown	3
3	Florida	2
4	Northwestern	4
5	Miami	6
6	Boston University	5
7	Loyola-L.A.	7
8	U. Washington	n/r
9	San Diego	8
10	Houston	n/r
n/r	Villanova	9
n/r	Denver	10

Washington (#8) and Houston (#10) were unranked last year and are ranked this year. Villanova (#9) and Denver (#10) were ranked last year and are unranked this year.

For the 2008-2011 U.S. News tax rankings, see here.

The U.S. News tax survey instrument states that it is intended "to identify the law schools having the top programs in tax law." The survey is sent "to a sample of law school faculty listed in the AALS Directory of Law Teachers 2009-2010 as currently teaching a course or seminar in tax law." Recipients are asked "to [i]dentify up to fifteen (15) schools that have the highest-quality tax law courses or programs. In making your choices consider all elements that contribute to a program's excellence, for example, the depth and breadth of the program, faculty research and publication record, etc."

As Donald Tobin (Ohio State) has noted, it is more than strange that NYU has finished ahead of Florida and Georgetown each year that U.S. News has conducted the survey.  Because the survey ranks the schools by how often they appear on the respondents' "Top 15" lists, this means that some folks list NYU, but not Florida and Georgetown, among the Top 15 tax programs.

For more on tax rankings, see our article, Pursuing a Tax LLM Degree: Where?, which compiles information about 13 highly ranked tax LLM programs: (1) NYU; (2) Florida; (3) Georgetown; (4) Northwestern; (5) Miami; (6) Boston University; (7) San Diego; (8) Loyola-L.A./LMU; (9) SMU; (10) Denver; (11) University of Washington; (12) Villanova; and (13) Chapman. The topics on which information is reported in the Article include: (1) tuition; (2) scholarships; (3) the full-time tax professors who teach in each program and the tax courses they teach; (4) the number of full-time and part-time students enrolled in each program; (5) general information about adjunct professors teaching in each program; (6) required courses; (7) elective courses, specialty certificates, and concentrations; (8) opportunities to develop tax practice skills by taking experiential learning courses and simulated practice courses; (9) extracurricular tax activities; (10) opportunities to graduate with honors or receive academic prizes; and (11) career planning and placement services offered to students in each program. The article also ranks the tax faculty at these thirteen law schools by citations (the Top 5 are NYU (1), Florida (2), Georgetown (3), Miami (4), and Northwestern (5)) and SSRN downloads (the Top 5 are Loyola-L.A. (1), NYU (2), Chapman (3), Florida (4), and San Diego (5)).

Other resources available on TaxProf Blog include:

• Links to All 32 Graduate Tax Programs
• Tax Faculty Rankings
• Graduate Tax Faculty Rankings
• Tax Professor Rankings
• Tax Faculty Metropolitan Area Rankings
• Links to Tax Colloquia Workshop Series (left column of the blog)