In its first year of eligibility, UIS was named to
U.S. News and World Reports' list of America's Best Colleges: once as best public university (master's category) in the state, and again as fourth best university in the same category in the Midwest.
On August 22, 2008, the State Journal-Register ran an article profiling the honor.
Download a pdf file of the article
20080822-SJR-UISAmongUSNewsBest.pdf