As the need for engineers increases, there is a parallel decrease in public funding of higher education. The press for increased efficiency in the system of higher education is inevitable. Although each college of engineering has its own unique mission, there may be exemplar programs that can provide guidance to them for the continuous improvement of engineering education. A Data Envelopment based model is developed using the number of faculty as the educational system input and B.S., M.S., PhD degrees, and research expenditures as measures of output for colleges of engineering in the U.S. Data was drawn from the ASEE data mining tool over a three year period (2010-2012) for 186 colleges of engineering. A non-dominated set of 24 efficient engineering colleges was identified and compare with the set of less efficient colleges. The relationship between the level of funded research and PhD production is the same for the efficient and less efficient programs. There is a marked difference between the efficient set and others in the relationship between BS and MS production and funded research. In the less efficient programs, there appears to be no relationship between the number of degrees granted and the amount of research funding. A regression surface fit to these programs and demonstrates the range of efficient programs. Implications for individual programs and further developments are discussed.