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.