South Dakota Mines Again Ranks Among the Nation’s Top Five Military Friendly Schools

Military Friendly has ranked South Dakota Mines second in the nation for its service to veterans. Mines is the only public university in the state to achieve a Top 10 ranking from the organization as a “2023-2024 Military Friendly^® School.”

Mines ranks among the top schools in the nation for exceeding standards of culture and commitment, academia, admissions, financial aid, return on investment and support for military students.

Sean McQueen, a U.S. Navy veteran and a metallurgical engineering major at Mines, gives praise to the network and community of support maintained at the university through the Rich and Trudy Wells Veterans Resource Center on campus. “I can't say enough good things about this school and the support system for veterans,” says McQueen. “With the help at Mines I have gotten set up with my VA benefits and my school is paid for through my master's, and the amount of internship and job placement opportunities on the outside once you are done with school is amazing.”

Wesley Quigley, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a computer science major at Mines, agrees, saying “the Veterans Resource Center is a huge part of my success because of the community we build here. Engineering and science are difficult subjects and the vets come together to help each other out and share our time assisting each other and that's one of the biggest benefits here.”

The Military Friendly website states: “South Dakota Mines is an excellent choice for military students because, most importantly, the school's graduate placement rate for military/veteran students is 100% for the past seven years. Also, South Dakota Mines is a STEM university, meaning its academic programs focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, fields heavily targeted by today's employers, and for which military students are particularly suited. Additionally, the support that military students receive here is phenomenal, such as: a benchmark Veterans Resource Center; Veterans Upward Bound on site; veteran-to-veteran tutoring/mentoring; military-specific orientation; military-specific scholarship, financial literacy, and college success workshops; and yearly, multiple, campus-wide military appreciation events.”

“Placing among the top schools in the nation is a huge honor. But the real honor is being able to work with the veteran scholars at South Dakota Mines. The level of hard work and dedication they put into earning their degrees is truly phenomenal,” says Derek Flom, director of the Veterans Resource Center at Mines and a US Air Force veteran.

Institutions earning the Military Friendly school designation were evaluated using both public data sources and responses from a proprietary survey. More than 1,800 schools participated in the 2023-2024 survey with 530 earning special awards for going above the standard.