Figures released recently by the American Society for Engineering Education show the university’s 1998-99 engineering research expenditures totaled $26.4 million, a 23 percent increase over the previous year.

The MSU College of Engineering now is 42nd on the ASEE list, up from 49th and ahead of Arizona State and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, among others. Among Southeastern Conference schools, it is second only to the University of Florida.

Much of the scientific investigations are conducted at MSU’s National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, which accounted for $6.8 million of the total, and the Diagnostic Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory, with $6.6 million. The balance was carried out in the various academic departments.

A university goal is to rank among the top 50 public research universities in the nation based on total insti-tutional research expenditures reported by the National Science Foundation.

MSU currently ranks 59th on the NSF list of public universities, up from 66th last year. The current ranking is based on total research expenditures of $100.4 million in 1997-98, but that figure climbed to approximately $125 million for 1999-2000.