UC San Diego among top public universities in U.S., according to new ranking
SAN DIEGO — With high school seniors starting to work on college applications, popular school review platform Niche has released its 2024 Best College Rankings and University of California, San Diego took a top spot on several lists, including top public universities in the country.
The updated list, which examined 4,048 colleges nationwide, put UCSD in the No. 17 spot on the list of best public universities in the U.S., coming behind University of Washington (No. 15) and Texas A&M University (No. 16).
UCSD also nabbed accolades on a handful of statewide rankings, including No. 10 among Best Colleges in California and No. 13 on the Best Value Colleges in California list.
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This comes about two weeks after the school was recognized among the top public universities in a separate ranking, the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities — an annual list published by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
“We are pleased to see UC San Diego’s reputation as one of the top-ranked global research universities continue to climb in global rankings and recognition,” Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla said in a release after the list was published.
“Our impressive placement in the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities spotlights UC San Diego as a world-class institution whose community of scholars actively pursues groundbreaking discovery and innovation to solve society’s biggest challenges,” Khosla added.
UCSD is internationally recognized for its research, with recognition from Clarivate as being among the top 10 most cited institutions in the world. The La Jolla university also totes 27 Novel Prize winners, eight MacArthur fellows and three Pulitzer Prize winners in its campus community between faculty, researchers and alumni.
According to Niche, college rankings are determined by an analysis of data sourced from the U.S. Department of Education along with millions of reviews from students and alumni. Factors reviewed in the analysis include academics, athletics, food and campus life, among others.
For the Best Value Colleges ranking, Niche refined the list by adding an Economic Mobility Index factor to this analysis, the company said, reflecting the ability of students to improve their economic status after graduation. The index uses data on the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, the net price of tuition for students from low-income households and the median earnings of those students six years after entry, according to Niche.
A full list of 2024 Best Colleges rankings from Niche can be found here.
University of California, Los Angeles took the top spot on the public universities in the U.S. ranking from Niche, followed by University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and Georgia Institute of Technology in second and third place.
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Other California universities ranked among the top 20 public universities by Niche are University of California, Berkley (No. 8) and University of California, Irvine (No. 13).
Meanwhile, Harvey Mudd College was ranked No. 1 on the statewide Best Value Colleges list, with the No. 2 and No. 3 spots going to Stanford University and California Institute of Technology, respectively.
San Diego-based online college, National University, was also on in the top 20 of the California Best Value Colleges ranking, coming in at eighth.
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