UC Santa Barbara continues its impressive upward trajectory, rising to No. 8 on U.S. News & World Report’s 2016 list of the “Top 30 Public National Universities” in the country. The distinction represents a jump of two spots from UCSB’s position last year and is UC Santa Barbara’s highest ranking in the history of the magazine’s annual listings.
On U.S. News’ list of “Best National Universities,” which includes both public and private institutions, UC Santa Barbara also moved up from last year – to No. 37 from No. 40. Among University of California institutions, only UC Berkeley and UCLA ranked higher than UCSB. Other UC campuses on the Top 30 list are UC Irvine, UC San Diego, and UC Davis.
U.S. News’ ranking system involves assigning universities and colleges to categories. The category of national universities that UCSB was placed in includes only those institutions that focus on faculty research and offer a variety of undergraduate majors, in addition to master’s degree and doctoral programs.
It is those excellent UCSB graduate programs and their extraordinary graduate students that helped lead to this high honor, said UCSB Graduate Division Dean Carol Genetti.
“This new ranking is a tribute to the UCSB’s unique combination of visionary leadership, entrepreneurial spirit, and strong sense of esprit de corps,” said Dean Genetti. “Our graduate students are essential to the success of our teaching and research missions and have directly contributed to this advancement in ranking. I’d like to express my thanks to all of our students for their creativity, dedication, and sheer hard work: Thanks, everyone, for helping to make this institution great!”
There’s more good news for UC Santa Barbara in the magazine’s 2016 “America’s Best Colleges” guidebook. UCSB placed No. 6 among public universities on U.S. News’ list of institutions that offer students the best education value. And UCSB’s College of Engineering ranked No. 18 among public universities in the category of “Best Programs at Engineering Schools Whose Highest Degree is a Doctorate.”
For more information, read the UCSB Office of Public Affairs and Communications’ news release, “The Cream of the Crop” and last year's GradPost article; and see U.S. News & World Report’s complete list.