UC Berkeley is the No. 1 public and No. 9 overall in Forbes rankings of undergraduate colleges

Forbes has once again ranked UC Berkeley No. 1 among public universities in its list of America’s Top Colleges, continuing several years of No. 1 placements in the publication’s annual list. 

Berkeley came in at No. 9 overall in the ranking, which was published Thursday, Sept. 10. The publication’s methodology is based on various measures of undergraduate academic and financial success, designed to highlight colleges that “produce the best academic and career outcomes for students from all economic backgrounds,” as Forbes wrote.

Alongside Berkeley, UCLA was ranked as the No. 2 public university nationwide, coming in at No. 12 overall. MIT was ranked No. 1. In an article spotlighting the top 25 public colleges in this year’s ranking, Forbes wrote that Berkeley is “an academic and research powerhouse,” noting that last year alone, one faculty member won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and one emeritus faculty member shared one in physics. 

Berkeley was notable for delivering the lowest average debt burden for students upon graduation among all public universities, at $5,924, and the second lowest overall, bested only by Yale University at $5,119. The median annual salary over the first 20 years after graduation for alums was $111,530.

Forbes uses a number of metrics to rank universities, including graduation and retention rates, return on investment (ROI), average student debt levels and financial and career outcomes for graduates. The publication also weighs enrollment numbers and post-graduation success measures for low-income students and number of recipients of federal Pell grants.

The honor is the latest in a number of high rankings Berkeley holds among national and international universities. This June, Berkeley was ranked the seventh-best university worldwide and the top public university in U.S. News & World Report’s global university rankings. Earlier this year, U.S. News also ranked 50 of Berkeley’s graduate programs among the top 25 in their field nationwide. And in September, Berkeley ranked No. 1 in PitchBook’s university rankings, which measures the number of venture-backed startups founded by undergraduate alums.