University of California, Santa Barbara

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 1,240 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United States).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Admit rate

33.0% src

Yield (admits who enrol)

16% src

Median earnings 10 years after entry

$74,915 src

40-year return on investment (Georgetown CEW)

$2.47M src

Average net price per year

$16,109 src

Graduation rate (6 years)

83% src

Rhodes Scholars, 2021–26

0 src

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

383 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

50 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

0 src

Students (undergraduate / total)

23,113 / 25,539

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =31. On strength alone: 263. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

16.3% (15.5%–17.1%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

2.1% (1.8%–2.4%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

771

All papers (fractional count)

4,742

International co-authored

50.3%

Open access

72.5%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

8 (0.60 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.