U.S. News & World Report has again named UC Riverside the No. 1 university in the nation for social mobility. UCR tied for the top social mobility ranking with Florida International University.
This is the eighth year that U.S. News has featured a breakout category for social mobility. UCR has been ranked No. 1 for six of those eight years; it was No. 2 the other two years.
“Academic excellence and access go hand in hand here," UCR Chancellor S. Jack Hu said. "Our faculty and staff have built a university that opens doors to a world-class education and gives students the support they need to make the most of that opportunity.”
U.S. News released its 2027 Best Colleges list on September 22. U.S. News Best Colleges is the nation’s most-watched college rankings list.
In its social mobility ranking, U.S. News aggregates two factors that assess the graduation rates of students who receive the Pell Grant, typically awarded to families earning less than $60,000 per year. The factors are Pell Grant graduation rates and Pell Grant graduation rate performance, which considers graduation rates among Pell Grant students vs. non-Pell students. About 48% of UCR’s undergraduates receive a Pell Grant.
In a new U.S. News category, “Best Value Schools for In-State Students,” UCR ranked No. 29 overall. Indicators include academic quality (40%); net price (20%); base tuition (20%), and number of scholarships and grants (20%). Ninety-six percent of UCR’s 24,000-plus undergraduate students are California residents.
UCR tied for No. 50 in a category U.S. News calls “most innovative.” This ranking is based on a peer assessment survey, and factors survey respondents’ opinions on which schools “are making the most innovative improvements in terms of curriculum, faculty, students, campus life, technology, or facilities.”
UCR was No. 80 in overall rank among 422 universities, and No. 37 among public universities.
In U.S. News’ scoring formula for the overall list, 17 categories — or “academic quality factors” — are considered. U.S. News assigns the most weight to student outcomes, a peer assessment score, and academic resources.
The outcomes category accounts for 52% of the score, and factors graduation rates, actual graduation rates vs. predicted rates, Pell Grant graduation rates, first-year retention, and post-graduation earnings. The peer assessment score — gathered from presidents, chancellors, deans, and provosts — accounts for another 20%. Academic resources includes factors such as student-faculty ratios, faculty salaries, and student spending, and accounts for around 20% of the score. The remaining 10% includes standardized tests scores (for those schools that factor the SAT and ACT) and faculty citations.
Criteria including acceptance rates, alumni giving, and high school class rank are no longer used in the U.S. News methodology.
Schools submit data to U.S. News from the U.S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, and the Common Data Set, or CDS, initiative, which provides faculty data. The Department of Education’s College Scorecard and the analytics firm Elsevier factor into the rankings, as well.
In breakout categories by undergraduate program, UCR’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering’s undergraduate computer science program was ranked No. 57 in the U.S. UCR’s undergraduate psychology program, in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, or CHASS, was No. 63. UCR’s business programs climbed five places, to No. 88, and its CHASS economics program climbed six places, to No. 78.
In the overall 2027 U.S. News list, MIT is No. 1, Princeton is No. 2, and Harvard is No. 3. UCLA and Berkeley ranked the highest among the UCs, tied for No. 20 overall.
Fall is college rankings season, with major publications across the U.S. publishing “best college” lists. UCR was recently named the No. 36 public university in the nation by Forbes magazine. It was ranked the No. 30 public university for research by Washington Monthly magazine.
