Rank Smell

From the San Francisco Chronicle: The University of California’s most sought-after campus, and its hardest to get into, is the famed UCLA, a school so prestigious that it is often called a “public Ivy” and compared with the elite institutions that dot the East Coast. But a new ranking released by the Wall Street Journal and College Pulse on Wednesday suggests, rightly or wrongly, that many other American universities — including UC Berkeley — offer a better deal for students than UCLA does.   

The 2026 ranking of 584 American universities names Stanford University as the best college in the country, and UC Berkeley as eighth best overall — and the top public university. By contrast, UCLA languishes far down the list at No. 80, just behind Cal State San Marcos and well below UC Merced at No. 14. UC’s Central Valley campus is where California’s high school seniors are automatically admitted when they qualify for UC but have been turned down elsewhere...

“Unlike other school rankings, this list emphasizes one point: How well did the college prepare students for financial success?” according to the Journal’s story about its own ranking. “More than any other factor, it rewards the boost an institution provides to its graduates’ salaries.” The full methodology indicates that the Journal also concluded that UCLA fell short of UC Berkeley and other schools in ways other than its post-graduation paychecks, to which the Journal assigned 33% of the ranking’s weight.

With the research firm College Pulse, the Journal surveyed 120,000 students and recent alumni. Colleges were then judged based on how long it takes to pay off any college debt (17% weight), graduation rate (20%), learning environment — including facilities, career preparation, networking opportunities and other measures — (20%), and students’ ethnic, financial and disability diversity (10%).  

A similar discrepancy showed up between UCLA and UC Berkeley in the Chronicle’s 20-year analysis of the best-paying jobs for every UC and California State University major. It revealed that computer science majors who graduate from UC Berkeley eventually earn $33,000 more annually than those from UCLA. Experts largely attribute the gap to UC Berkeley’s proximity to Silicon Valley...

Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/ucla-uc-college-university-21078625.php.