UC Berkeley graduate programs soar to elite status in latest US News rankings

UC Berkeley’s graduate programs maintained their premier-level rankings in a 2025 survey released today (Tuesday, April 8) by US News & World Report, with elite scores achieved in disciplines ranging from the social sciences and engineering to computer science and business.

A remarkably diverse set of Berkeley schools and programs achieved top rankings in the magazine’s annual assessment of graduate programs nationwide.

The College of Letters & Sciences scored No. 1 rankings for economics, psychology and sociology in the Division of Social Sciences, and for English in the Division of Arts & Humanities.

The College of Engineering achieved a No. 1 ranking in three programs: computer engineering; electrical, electronic and communications engineering; and environmental/environmental health engineering.

At the Haas School of Business, the part-time MBA program tied for the best in the nation. And at the Goldman School of Public Policy, the public policy analysis discipline was rated No. 1.

Berkeley programs in computer science, public health, law and education also placed in the Top 10. The UC Berkeley School of Education this year jumped up eight spots and is now tied for sixth among all U.S. schools and colleges of education.

In all, 50 Berkeley divisions, schools and disciplines ranked in the Top 10 nationwide for graduate programs. Nineteen others ranked in the Top 25. 

This year, US News evaluated thousands of programs and disciplines at hundreds of colleges and universities. Every year, the magazine keys on six academic areas popular with prospective graduate students: business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing. Those fields are evaluated with a range of data provided by the schools, as well as through “reputation surveys” sent to thousands of top officials and academics in the field.

In addition, the magazine this year evaluated public affairs, computer science, health fields, public health, library and information sciences, and social sciences, with rankings based solely on reputation surveys submitted by peers. The disciplines evaluated via the reputational rankings change from year to year; for example, none of the traditional hard sciences were included in this year’s rankings.

Berkeley’s Top 10 placements extend across a range of fields:

Social sciences and humanities:

·  No. 1 in economics (tie)

·  No. 1 in English

·  No. 1 in psychology (tie)

·  No. 1 in sociology (tie)

·  No. 2 in history (tie)

·  No. 2 in political science (tie)

Computer science:

·  No. 2 overall among U.S. colleges and universities (tie)

·  No. 2 in theory

·  No. 3 in systems

·  No. 4 in artificial intelligence

·  No. 6 in programming language

Engineering:

·  No. 3 overall among the U.S. engineering schools and colleges

·  No. 1 in computer engineering (tie)

·  No. 1 in electrical/electronic/communications engineering

·  No. 1 in environmental/environmental health engineering

·  No. 2 in chemical engineering (tie)

·  No. 2 in civil engineering (tie)

·  No. 3 in industrial manufacturing/systems engineering (tie)

·  No. 3 in materials engineering (tie)

·  No. 3 in mechanical engineering (tie)

·  No. 4 in biomedical engineering/bioengineering (tie)

·  No. 7 in nuclear engineering

Public affairs:

·  No. 3 overall among U.S. public affairs and public policy schools and colleges

·  No. 1 in public policy analysis

·  No. 2 in social policy

·  No. 4 in environmental policy

·  No. 10 in health policy

Education:

·  No. 6 overall among U.S. schools and colleges of education (tie)

·  No. 9 in education policy

·  No. 10 in educational psychology

Public health:

·  No. 8 overall among U.S. schools and colleges of public health (tie)

·  No. 8 in environmental health science

·  No. 8 in social behavior

·  No. 10 in epidemiology

Business MBA programs:

·  No. 1 in part-time MBA programs (tie)

·  No. 4 in entrepreneurship

·  No. 4 in real estate

·  No. 4 in nonprofit management

·  No. 6 in executive MBA programs

·  No. 8 in finance

·  No. 10 in business analytics

·  No. 10 in management (tie)

Law programs:

UC Berkeley Law does not participate in the US News ranking process, but the school still received high rankings in a number of areas based on publicly available data and the peer surveys.

·  No. 2 in intellectual property law

·  No. 2 in environmental law (tie)

·  No. 4 in clinical training programs (tie)

·  No. 5 in constitutional law (tie)

·  No. 6 in contracts/commercial law (tie)

·  No. 6 in international law (tie)

·  No. 7 in business/corporate law

·  No. 7 in criminal law

For more information:

Access all of the new UC Berkeley graduate school rankings from US News & World Report.

See the most recent US News rankings for every UC Berkeley graduate program, including those not reviewed this year.

Read the US News story announcing the 2025 U.S. graduate school rankings.