Accountability Report 2017

Chapter 14:

Honors and Rankings

A number of ranking systems aim to measure the quality of higher education institutions. Ranking systems differ in the factors they consider and the emphasis they place on these factors. In many cases, the ranking methodology changes, and it becomes impossible to make ranking comparisons for the same institution over time.

This chapter provides information across a sample of national and international ranking systems and describes how each uses a different combination of factors to signal aspects of quality. For example, two organizations — U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) and the Washington Monthly — both rank undergraduate institutions, but they define education quality and value differently.

USNWR focuses on academic reputation, graduation rates, student selectivity and financial resources to create its list of America’s Best Colleges; in contrast, the Washington Monthly defines academic quality in terms of contribution to the public good. One ranking system, USNWR, looks at graduate and professional education in the U.S. Two other ranking systems — the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings — rank institutions around the globe, primarily using faculty research productivity.

In the University of California’s case, what unites these systems is how well represented UC campuses are, with many of these campuses near or at the top of public institutions. While recognizing that these rankings may be useful sources of information, UC does not endorse any particular ranking system nor does it have specific goals with respect to any of them.

In fact, over the past few years, UC has supported the development of the College Scorecard, a single source of national data and metrics. In September of 2015, the Department of Education unveiled a revamped version of the College Scorecard, an interactive tool that allows students, parents and counselors to search and compare institutions using their own academic, career and financial goal preferences. The Scorecard includes information about student outcomes such as graduation rates, student earnings, debt and repayment rates, with some of these data available for subgroups such as first-generation and low-income students.

The College Scorecard data demonstrate that UC continues to be a good investment for students. Compared to the other AAU public institutions, UC provides greater access for low-income and first-generation students, and for underrepresented minorities. UC also demonstrates high graduation rates and high median earnings for all students, including those from low-income backgrounds.

One of the points of pride for the University of California is providing students from the bottom end of the economic spectrum with access to an educational and research environment comparable to the nation’s finest private institutions but on a significantly larger scale. This chapter opens with a discussion on analyses from the New York Times that show how UC campuses are moving students from the bottom end to the top end of the economic spectrum, continuing UC’s tradition as “California’s upward-mobility machine.”

The rankings selected for this report are:

  • Washington Monthly: National University Rankings
  • U.S. News: America’s Top National Universities
  • U.S. News: Graduate Program Rankings
  • Shanghai Ranking Consultancy: Academic Ranking of World Universities
  • Times Higher Education: World University Ranking

For more information



14.1 NEW YORK TIMES: Social Mobility

UC campuses are leaders in promoting social mobility, moving large numbers of students from the bottom to the top of the economic spectrum. 

With income inequality continuing to be at the forefront of the national conversation, the New York Times published several articles in 2017 on colleges and social mobility. One of these articles showed elite colleges that enroll the highest percentage of low- and middle-income students, with UCLA leading the pack.

14.1.1    New York Times: Elite colleges that enroll the highest percentage of low- and middle-income students

College Pct. from bottom 40%
of economic spectrum
UCLA 19.2
Emory University 15.9
Barnard College 15.3
New York University 14.3
Vassar College 13.8
Bryn Mawr College 13.7
MIT 13.5

The Times articles also focused on which colleges enroll the most students at the top and bottom ends of the economic spectrum. The analyses showed that roughly half of UC Merced’s and UC Riverside’s students were from the bottom 60% of the economic spectrum, and that the other UC campuses enroll an average of one-third of their students from the bottom 60%.

 14.1.2    New York Times: Colleges with high mobility rates, students from the top 1 percent and bottom 60 percent of the economic spectrum

Campus Top 1%
(income of $630k+)		 Bottom 60%
(income of <$65k)
Merced <1% 53.9%
Riverside <1% 48.0%
San Diego 1.8% 43.0%
Davis 2.4% 37.6%
Irvine 1.3% 34.2%
Los Angeles 4.1% 33.5%
Santa Barbara 3.4% 33.1%
Santa Cruz 2.2% 32.9%
Berkeley 3.8% 29.7%

Statistics are for the 1991 birth cohort (approx. the class of 2013).

The Times also reported on colleges’ mobility rates, which combine a college’s share of students from lower-income families with its success at propelling them into the upper part of the distribution. The rate examined colleges that took students from the bottom 40 percent to the top 40 percent of the economic spectrum. In combination with the “success rate,” which measured the percent of lower-income students who ended up in the top 40 percent, the table shows UC’s continuing strength as an “upward-mobility machine.” UC Riverside, UC Irvine and UCLA were especially effective in moving students from a lower-income family to a higher-income family.

 14.1.3    New York Times: Students who entered from the bottom 40 percent of the economic spectrum and arrived at the top 40 percent

College Pct. from bottom 40% Success rate Mobility rate
Riverside 31.5% 66.1% 20.8%
Irvine 25.5% 70.3% 17.9%
Los Angeles 22.8% 70.3% 16.0%
San Diego 19.6% 71.9% 14.1%
Berkeley 19.5% 71.0% 13.8%
Davis 19.1% 70.8% 13.5%
Santa Barbara 14.9% 67.6% 10.1%
Santa Cruz 16.7% 59.5% 10.0%

Data here comes from the 1980-82 birth cohort, roughly the college classes of 2002-04. By this stage in life, income ranks are relatively stable.



14.2 Washington Monthly: National UNIVERSITY RANKINGS

UC is highly rated in the Washington Monthly rankings, which focus on contributions to the public good. In the 2016 listing, four of the top ten universities are UC campuses.

Washington Monthly developed its ranking system in 2005 as an alternative to U.S. News’s America’s Best Colleges rankings. Unlike U.S. News, which ranks institutions on their prestige, resources and selectivity, Washington Monthly ranks institutions on their contributions to the public good.

Its rankings are based on three broad factors: how well each institution fosters social mobility (e.g., percentage of students receiving Pell Grants); furthers research (e.g., faculty awards and Ph.D. production); and serves the country (e.g., student participation in ROTC and the Peace Corps).

14.2.1    Washington Monthly: National University Rankings, 2007 to 2016 (Washington Monthly did not publish rankings for 2008)

 
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
San Diego
4
n/a
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
Riverside
15
n/a
16
40
5
9
2
2
2
12
Berkeley
3
n/a
1
2
3
5
5
3
4
7
Stanford
13
n/a
4
4
4
3
6
6
5
1
Los Angeles
2
n/a
3
3
2
6
10
5
6
8
Harvard
27
n/a
11
9
6
11
8
10
8
2
U of Michigan
6
n/a
18
7
10
13
12
13
13
21
Santa Barbara
36
n/a
21
11
13
14
22
15
14
17
MIT
27
n/a
12
15
11
15
11
14
15
3
Davis
8
n/a
10
6
8
17
23
16
16
10
U of Illinois
11
n/a
24
27
38
22
19
26
27
33
Yale
38
n/a
23
33
39
41
54
57
44
13
Irvine
49
n/a
44
50
60
117
84
83
51
35
U of Virginia
16
n/a
26
59
53
48
51
60
63
54
Santa Cruz
76
n/a
56
93
70
67
65
79
73
97
Univ. at Buffalo
111
n/a
101
121
160
202
204
162
153
165


14.3 U.S. NEWS: AMERICA’S TOP UNIVERSITIES

Of the top ten national public universities in the U.S. News and World Report ranking, six are UC campuses.

First published in 1983, the U.S. News and World Report college rankings are the oldest and best known of all college rankings. These rankings are based on seven major factors: peer assessment, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources and alumni-giving rates. U.S. News’s rankings of top national universities focus on academic reputation, financial resources and selectivity — factors that tend to privilege older, well-established, elite private institutions.  

14.3.1    U.S. News: America’s Top National Public Universities, 2008–2017

 
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Berkeley
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Los Angeles
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
U of Virginia
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
U of Michigan
3
4
4
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
Santa Barbara
13
12
11
9
10
10
11
10
8
8
Irvine
13
12
14
11
13
12
14
11
9
9
San Diego
8
7
7
7
8
8
9
8
9
10
Davis
11
12
11
9
9
8
9
9
11
10
U of Illinois
8
10
9
15
13
13
11
11
12
10
Santa Cruz
35
45
29
29
31
32
36
35
34
30
Univ. at Buffalo
-
-
-
-
54
51
53
48
45
43
Riverside
45
40
43
41
41
46
55
55
58
56
Merced
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
78

"nr" denotes that the university that was not rated in that year. 

14.3.2    U.S. News: America’s Top National Universities, 2008–2017 2

  2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Harvard 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2
Yale 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Stanford 4 4 4 5 5 6 5 4 4 5
MIT 7 4 4 7 5 6 7 7 7 7
Berkeley 21 21 21 22 21 21 20 20 20 20
Los Angeles 25 25 24 25 25 24 23 23 23 24
U of Virginia 23 23 24 25 25 24 23 23 26 24
U of Michigan 25 26 27 29 28 29 28 29 29 27
Santa Barbara 44 44 42 39 42 41 41 40 37 37
Irvine 44 44 46 41 45 44 49 42 39 39
San Diego 38 35 35 35 37 38 39 37 39 44
Davis 42 44 42 39 38 38 39 38 41 44
U of Illinois 38 40 39 47 45 46 41 42 41 44
Santa Cruz 79 96 71 72 75 77 86 85 82 79
Univ. at Buffalo 3rd tier 121 121 120 111 106 109 103 99 99
Riverside 96 89 96 94 97 101 112 113 121 118
Merced nr nr nr nr nr nr nr nr nr 152

"nr" denotes that the university that was not rated in that year. 

UC San Francisco is not included in U.S. News’ “America’s Best Colleges” rankings because it is a graduate health sciences campus. Since 2014, the top-ranked national university has been Princeton University. 



14.4 U.S. News: Graduate Program Rankings

UC’s graduate and professional programs are consistently highly rated in comparison to peer institutions.

U.S. News has ranked American universities’ graduate programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine since 2000. Like its college rankings, USNWR’s graduate program rankings are controversial. The absence of an institution from a top ranking does not necessarily imply that it received a lower ranking: Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, for example, do not offer M.D. degrees and thus are not ranked in medicine while Riverside’s M.D. program is too new to be ranked.

14.4.1    U.S. News: Graduate Program Rankings, 2007 to 2017

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Business Harvard
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
Stanford
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
4
MIT
4
4
4
3
3
4
4
5
5
5
4
Berkeley
8
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
Yale
14
13
10
11
10
10
13
13
13
8
9
U of Michigan
11
12
13
12
14
13
14
11
11
12
11
U of Virginia
12
14
15
13
13
13
12
11
10
11
14
Los Angeles
16
11
14
15
14
15
14
16
15
15
15
U of Illinois
38
38
42
42
37
37
47
35
47
39
40
Davis
44
40
42
42
28
36
40
41
48
45
42
Irvine
44
nr
36
36
40
49
49
45
53
48
44
Univ. at Buffalo
nr
nr
nr
nr
75
89
75
74
79
81
73
San Diego
73
60
63
77
82
Riverside
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
97
nr
nr
nr
nr
93

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Education Harvard
3
6
6
3
2
2
3
3
2
2
1
Stanford
2
1
2
5
4
4
5
4
3
1
2
Los Angeles
5
3
5
6
6
6
8
11
13
11
3
U of Michigan
6
9
14
14
9
12
11
8
11
12
15
Berkeley
8
7
7
10
12
13
12
14
17
18
18
U of Virginia
31
24
21
21
22
23
22
22
22
21
18
U of Illinois
25
48
25
25
23
22
19
26
24
23
24
Irvine
nr
nr
nr
nr
48
43
37
36
31
25
25
Davis
nr
nr
nr
nr
58
63
60
45
38
51
36
Santa Barbara
nr
nr
nr
nr
58
63
40
64
67
49
52
San Diego
98
99
74
69
Riverside
nr
nr
nr
nr
66
67
74
77
76
62
72

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Engineering MIT
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Stanford
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Berkeley
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
U of Michigan
9
9
9
8
9
8
9
8
6
6
5
U of Illinois
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
6
6
7
9
San Diego
13
11
12
13
14
14
14
14
17
17
13
Los Angeles
16
13
14
15
14
16
16
16
14
14
16
Santa Barbara
19
19
18
19
21
21
20
19
23
23
19
Harvard
23
22
18
19
18
19
23
24
20
24
23
Davis
32
33
32
32
31
31
33
31
33
33
34
Irvine
37
35
36
36
39
39
37
38
37
37
37
Yale
39
40
39
39
35
34
34
34
35
38
38
U of Virginia
38
37
39
39
39
39
38
40
39
39
39
Univ. at Buffalo
nr
nr
nr
nr
52
54
61
60
59
61
67
Riverside
nr
nr
nr
nr
66
64
67
69
71
71
67
Santa Cruz
nr
nr
nr
nr
78
87
87
81
88
87
85

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Law Yale
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Stanford
2
3
3
3
3
3
2
3
2
2
2
Harvard
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
U of Michigan
8
9
9
9
7
10
9
10
11
8
8
U of Virginia
10
9
10
10
9
7
7
8
8
8
8
Berkeley
8
6
6
7
9
7
9
9
8
8
12
Los Angeles
15
16
15
15
16
15
17
16
16
17
15
Irvine
nr
nr
30
28
28
Davis
44
35
28
28
23
29
38
36
31
30
39
U of Illinois
25
27
23
21
23
35
47
40
41
40
44
Hastings
38
39
42
42
42
44
48
54
59
50
54
Univ. at Buffalo
100
85
third tier
third tier
84
82
86
100
87
100
106

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Medicine: Primary
Care		 San Francisco
8
6
5
5
4
3
4
4
3
3
3
U of Michigan
45
17
7
14
20
8
8
8
5
4
5
Los Angeles
18
12
10
14
16
10
11
13
7
6
6
San Diego
35
26
28
28
33
27
39
38
19
21
12
Harvard
13
7
15
17
15
15
14
11
12
17
16
Davis
26
35
20
20
41
24
19
16
19
37
18
U of Virginia
38
35
29
39
20
19
18
29
40
25
24
Stanford
63
62
38
25
37
41
Yale
nr
nr
nr
nr
67
74
72
68
57
37
44
Irvine
nr
nr
nr
nr
nr
86
66
61
62
62
71
Univ. at Buffalo
nr
nr
nr
nr
86
nr
79
nr
nr
nr
77

  Campus
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Medicine: Research Harvard
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Stanford
7
8
6
11
5
4
2
2
2
2
2
San Francisco
5
5
5
4
5
5
4
4
3
3
4
Yale
8
9
6
6
5
7
7
7
7
8
9
U of Michigan
10
11
11
6
10
10
8
12
10
11
9
Los Angeles
13
9
11
11
13
13
13
12
13
14
11
San Diego
14
14
15
16
15
16
15
14
17
18
18
U of Virginia
25
22
25
26
26
26
28
27
Davis
48
48
47
47
42
42
42
40
43
47
45
Irvine
43
45
47
47
42
44
42
43
45
44
48
Univ. at Buffalo
nr
nr
nr
nr
55
57
64
71
nr
nr
67

Notes: “nr” denotes the program was not rated in that year. Professional programs are listed here by what U.S. News calls the “edition” year, which is one year after the “ranked in” year. For example, the 2016 rankings above were published in the 2017 edition but ranked in 2015.



14.5 Shanghai Ranking Consultancy: Academic Rankings of World Universities 

In the Academic Rankings of World Universities, only four public universities in the world appear in the top 20, and all four are UC campuses.

The Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU) was created by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China in 2003 to determine the global standing of Chinese research universities. Since 2009, the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy has published these rankings.

The Shanghai Ranking Consultancy ranks the top 1,200 universities worldwide; their rankings are based entirely on measures of research strength and faculty honors and awards. English-speaking universities, especially those in the United States, tend to dominate the ARWU rankings.

This ranking system emphasizes research outputs, such as total research expenditures. Because research outputs are not normalized by number of faculty, larger institutions tend to rank more highly than smaller ones. Institutions with strong research programs, especially in the sciences, also tend to score higher than those whose major strengths are in the humanities and social sciences.

14.5.1    Shanghai Ranking Consultancy: Academic Rankings of World Universities, 2007 to 2016

Note: Campuses ranked below the top 100 are placed into ranges in lieu of an exact ranking

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Harvard 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Stanford 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2
MIT 5 5 5 4 3 3 4 3 3 5
Berkeley 3 3 3 2 4 4 3 4 4 3
Yale 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11
Los Angeles 13 13 13 13 12 12 12 12 12 12
San Diego 14 14 14 14 15 15 14 14 14 14
San Francisco 18 18 18 18 17 18 18 18 18 21
U of Michigan 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 22 22 23
U of Illinois 26 26 25 25 25 25 25 28 29 30
Santa Barbara 35 36 35 32 33 34 35 41 38 42
Irvine 45 46 46 46 48 45 45 47 50 58
Davis 43 48 49 46 48 47 47 55 57 75
Santa Cruz 102–150 102–150 102–150 102–150 102–150 101–150 101–150 93 93 83
Riverside 102–150 102–150 102–150 102–150 102-150 101–150 101–150 101–150 101-150 151-200
U of Virginia 102–150 95 91 96 102–150 101–150 101–150 101–150 101-150 151-200
Univ. at Buffalo 203–304 201–302 201–302 201–300 201–300 201–300 201–300 201–300 201-300 301-400


14.6 Times Higher Education: World University Rankings

The top two public institutions in the Times Higher Education rankings are UC Berkeley and UCLA.

The British-based Times Higher Education (THE) significantly revised its educational rankings in 2011; thus, institutional scores from prior years are not comparable to current rankings. The rankings are based on five “headline” categories: teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook.

The 2016-17 edition of THE rankings continued the use of a more comprehensive database to measure research productivity, improving coverage of peer-reviewed research not published in English. 

14.6.1 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, 2010–11 to 2016–17

  Reputational Ranking
  2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Harvard 1 1 1 1 1 1
MIT 2 2 2 2 4 2
Stanford 5 4 6 3 5 3
Berkeley 4 5 5 6 6 6
Yale 9 10 10 8 8 8
Los Angeles 12 9 8 10 13 13
U of Michigan 13 12 12 15 19 14
U of Illinois 21 23 24 23 30 30
San Diego 30 36 34 40 41 35
Davis 38 44 48 51–60 44 45
San Francisco 34 31 40 32 38 42
Santa Barbara 51–60 51–60 51–60 61–70 61–70 71–80

  Overall Ranking
  2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015-16
Harvard 1 2 4 2 2 6
MIT 3 7 5 5 6 5
Stanford 4 2 2 4 4 3
Berkeley 8 10 9 8 8 13
Yale 10 11 11 11 9 12
Los Angeles 11 13 13 12 12 16
U of Michigan 15 18 20 18 17 21
U of Illinois 33 31 33 29 29 36
San Diego 32 33 38 40 41 39
Davis 54 38 44 52 55 44
Santa Barbara 29 35 35 33 37 39
Irvine 49 86 96 93 88 106
Santa Cruz 68 110 122 136 109 144
U of Virginia 72 135 118 112 130 147
Riverside 117 143 154 148 150 167
U at Buffalo     198 176 191 201 –250

Note: a blank denotes not ranked. Campuses in the reputational ranking below the top 50 are placed into ranges in lieu of an exact ranking.