Campus & community, Campus news

Berkeley ranked No. 1 public university by US News

By Public Affairs

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UC Berkeley is No. 1 in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of public national universities, claiming the top position for the 17th straight year.

And once again, UCLA and Virginia were second among public universities in the 2015 college rankings, which were released today (Tuesday, Sept. 9). The University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill rounded out the top five. Six of the top 11 public universities are University of California campuses, and seven UC campuses made the top 50. (UCSF and UC Merced were not included in the category.)

Among all universities, Berkeley again placed 20th overall. Princeton repeated as the top ranked college, followed by Harvard (2nd), Yale (3rd), and Columbia, Chicago and Stanford (tied at 4th). MIT placed 7th.

Berkeley’s tuition and fees were by far the lowest of any college in the top 10.

Again this year, U.S. News lists Berkeley as 2nd only to UCLA in percentage of undergraduates receiving Pell grants, and 9th among national universities with the least student debt upon graduation. Berkeley also received recognition
for undergraduate research, and a top choice among high school guidance counselors. These metrics are not incorporated into the rankings of undergraduate education.

Among undergraduate programs ranked by peer academics, Berkeley remained 2nd (tied with MIT) to the University of Pennsylvania in Business, and remained 3rd in Engineering, behind MIT and Stanford.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the overall campus rankings are based on a formula that “uses quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality, and it’s based on our researched view of what matters in education.”