Complex sentence: The only Virginia institution in the top 50 of the NSF's rankings for research expenditures, Virginia Tech is No.23 among public universities and its research expenditures rank it in the top 5 percent of more than 900 research universities and colleges.
Split into simpler sentences: The only Virginia institution in the top 50 of the NSF's rankings for research expenditures, Virginia Tech is No.23 among public universities. The university's research expenditures rank it in the top 5 percent of more than 900 research universities and colleges.