When you rank universities by what graduates can actually do rather than by institutional prestige, the results look different. That’s been true every year since CodeSignal started publishing its University Ranking Report. One of this year’s standouts: San José State University (SJSU) at #2 in the country, up 47 spots since 2021.
We sat down with three of SJSU’s deans to understand what’s driving it: Sheryl Ehrman of the Charles Davidson College of Engineering, Michael Kaufman of the College of Science, and Mehrdad Aliasgari of the College of Information, Data and Society. What they described isn’t a sudden surge, but rather a philosophy that’s been in place for a while.
Skills aren’t built in classrooms alone
Ask each dean what’s behind the rise and you hear the same theme: it’s about closing the gap between classroom learning and industry practice.
Dean Ehrman is direct about where the challenge lies: “The field of software development is changing faster than ever before. Academia is not known for rapid change. Many of our students come to our programs with work experience, especially at the graduate level, and our faculty and lecturers also have industry experience. Both students and faculty bring this current knowledge to the courses.”
That mindset extends well beyond the lecture hall. SJSU invests in competitions, clubs, and hackathons, and their computing club competes at nationals in the ICPC. Students get real reps on real problems beyond classroom theory.
Dean Aliasgari frames it as institutional philosophy: “We have built programs that combine technical depth with applied, real-world problem solving. At SJSU, we expect students not only to understand ideas, but also to build, test, debug, and improve solutions.”
Dean Kaufman puts it plainly: “SJSU combines high-quality, industry-relevant degree programs, offered by faculty with industry experience and contacts. Location matters.”
The Silicon Valley effect
SJSU sits at the center of the most concentrated tech ecosystem on earth, and that’s not just a perk. It actively shapes how students learn and how programs are built.
“Our academic programs have industry advisory councils which provide direct input to departments regarding industry needs,” Dean Ehrman explains. “Most of our lecturer faculty are part time and hold day jobs in the tech industry, so they’re able to include real-world perspectives in our courses. Many of our full-time tenure-line faculty also have industry experience and current collaborations with industry partners.”
The result is a curriculum that keeps pace with the industry it serves.
Dean Kaufman has seen it firsthand: “When I attend events focused on new developments in AI, ML, and emerging technologies, SJSU students are there, soaking up the knowledge and building the networks necessary to succeed.”
For Dean Aliasgari, proximity shows up in the details. In the Applied Data Science program, Chair and Professor Simon Shim keeps the curriculum aligned with machine learning, deep learning, generative AI, and large language models. “Our students are gaining experience in the kinds of tools, workflows, and problem-solving approaches they will encounter in the workplace.”
Image source: https://blogs.sjsu.edu/
What a #2 ranking actually means
CodeSignal’s skills-based University Ranking Report doesn’t measure prestige or selectivity. It measures whether graduates can do the job. The deans are clear about what SJSU’s position reflects.
“Their performance on this assessment shows our students have the skills that industry is seeking,” says Dean Ehrman.
Dean Aliasgari goes further: “It shows that our students are increasingly able to translate knowledge into practice. A coding-based ranking like this reflects skills in problem decomposition, persistence, debugging, and the ability to produce working solutions under constraints. Our students are developing the discipline, adaptability, and technical confidence that employers need in today’s computing and data teams.”
Dean Kaufman sums it up: “These students know that SJSU is the place to show off their skills, both at the institution and for neighboring and partnering industries.”
Getting students ready for the AI era
No question is more pressing for engineering programs right now: as AI raises the bar for entry-level engineers, how do you prepare students for expectations that keep shifting? SJSU isn’t waiting for the dust to settle.
“With programs like our MS in Artificial Intelligence, those graduates will be developing the next wave of AI technology,” says Dean Ehrman. “In software engineering, we expect students will know the fundamentals and be able to critically collaborate with AI to be more effective and efficient in their roles. Faculty who are experts in AI across our campus are also helping to train non-AI-expert faculty to incorporate AI into their curriculum.”
Dean Kaufman points out that SJSU’s faculty weren’t caught off guard by the rise of large language models: “Our faculty have been steeped in AI long before the LLM revolution, so students were already learning the fundamentals. Now faculty are pivoting, allowing students to build competencies working alongside AI agents as partners that can accelerate their abilities.”
For Dean Aliasgari, AI sharpens the mission rather than complicating it: “AI is raising the bar for entry-level professionals, but in a way that makes fundamentals even more important. Our students learn how to solve problems, reason through ambiguity, evaluate outputs, protect data, and explain their decisions clearly. Our graduates are prepared not only to use these technologies thoughtfully, but also to judge when to trust them, when to question them, and how to work effectively in a future shaped by human-AI collaboration.”
“Our faculty have been steeped in AI long before the LLM revolution, so students were already learning the fundamentals. Now faculty are pivoting, allowing students to build competencies working alongside AI agents as partners that can accelerate their abilities.”
— Dean Kaufman
How students can stand out
We asked each dean: what would you tell a student who wants to be genuinely job-ready at graduation?
Dean Ehrman is direct: “Internship experience is very important. Having instructors with current industry experience matters too.”
Dean Kaufman: “Apply your skills to open-ended problems. This will provide opportunities to hone your skills and make you adaptable as new technologies and challenges arise.”
Dean Aliasgari gets specific: “Go beyond the classroom. Build your portfolio. Do an internship. Work on a faculty research project. Take on a real-world challenge, and learn how to use tools thoughtfully. The graduates who stand out are the ones who can tell the story of the projects they have worked on, what they built, how they built it, what problem they were trying to solve, and what they learned along the way.”
“The graduates who stand out are the ones who can tell the story of the projects they have worked on, what they built, how they built it, what problem they were trying to solve, and what they learned along the way.”
— Dean Aliasgari
What skills-based rankings reveal
For six years, CodeSignal’s University Ranking Report, based on tens of thousands of real-world skills assessment results, has shown the same thing: when you measure demonstrated skill, you get a very different picture of where top talent is being developed. This year’s report found that 14 of the top 50 schools don’t appear in the U.S. News and World Report’s top programs at all.
“San José State climbing to #2 is one of the most exciting results we’ve seen in six years of this research,” says Tigran Sloyan, CodeSignal’s CEO. “When you actually measure demonstrated skill, you get a very different picture of where top talent is being developed. SJSU is a perfect example of that. They’ve taken a skills-first approach to preparing their students for the workforce, and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate their achievements.”
💡 Curious how other schools stack up?
View the full 2026 University Ranking Report, including methodology.