UC Santa Barbara has been ranked number 21 in a list of the Top 30 National Universities released today by Washington Monthly magazine in its September/October issue.
While U.S. News & World Report awarded its highest ratings to private universities in its recently released rankings (UCSB was number 42 in the U.S. News list), the editors of Washington Monthly say that they believe that public universities deserve more credit. Thirteen of the top 20 universities in the Washington Monthly rankings are taxpayer-funded. Some of U.S. News & World Report's top private universities are not ranked among Washington Monthly's top 25 universities.
The University of California dominated Washington Monthly's 2009 list, with UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and UCLA ranking 1-2-3.
"The University of California system in particular stands out, grabbing the top three spots, and six of the top twenty-five," the magazine's editors said. "UC campuses enroll unusually high numbers of low-income students while maintaining high graduation rates, generating billions of dollars in research funding, and sending a healthy number of students into service programs like the Peace Corps. Tragically, budget cuts stemming from the current California budget fiasco are putting all of that at risk."
Other UC campuses in the top 20 are UC Davis (10) and UC Riverside (16).
Among the criteria considered by Washington Monthly are the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants; the difference between predicted vs. actual graduation rates; total research spending; Peace Corps rankings; faculty awards; and faculty members elected to national academies.
The Washington Monthly 2009 College Rankings can be found at www.washingtonmonthly.com/
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