National and Global University Rankings

National Rankings

The 2025 Best Colleges Overall Ranking for National Universities assesses institutions based on key performance indicators that demonstrate their commitment to student success. UCLA is proud to be recognized as the nation’s No. 1 public university and ranks 15th among all national universities in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings.

This methodology incorporates essential metrics such as graduation rates, first-year retention rates and Pell graduation rates. Key factors like peer assessments, financial resources per student and faculty salaries also play a significant role in shaping rankings. The evaluation further considers economic outcomes, borrower debt levels and the student-faculty ratio, providing a holistic view of each university’s effectiveness in supporting undergraduate education. Although the U.S. News rankings tend to favor private institutions, they still serve as a valuable resource for understanding academic excellence.

UCLA was named the No. 1 public university for veterans.

The U.S. News & World Report's 2025 Best Colleges for Veterans rankings showcase top universities dedicated to making education affordable for veterans and active-duty service members. To be included in this prestigious list, institutions must be GI Bill certified, participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program or be public colleges. Additionally, they need to enroll a minimum of 20 undergraduate veterans or active-duty members and rank in the top half of the Best Colleges categories. This selection process highlights universities that are committed to providing valuable support and resources for those who have served in the military, ensuring they receive a quality education.

UCLA has been recognized as the nation’s top public university in Niche.com’s annual “Best Colleges”rankings

The Top Public Universities ranking is based on a thorough analysis of academic performance, admissions data, financial metrics, and student life insights from the U.S. Department of Education and millions of student reviews. Key factors include academics—assessing acceptance rates and professor quality; value—looking at loan amounts and alumni earnings; and diversity—evaluating the student body's ethnic composition. The ranking also considers campus quality, student life, and local area conditions, ensuring that prospective students can find the best public universities that meet their academic and lifestyle needs.

Global Rankings

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) employs six objective indicators to evaluate global universities, ensuring a robust and data-driven ranking system. These indicators include the number of alumni and staff who have won Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the count of highly cited researchers identified by Clarivate, and the number of articles published in prestigious journals like Nature and Science. Additionally, ARWU considers the number of articles indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded™ and Social Sciences Citation Index™ within the Web of Science™, as well as the per capita performance of each university. Every year, ARWU ranks over 2,500 universities, publishing the top 1,000, making it a vital resource for prospective students seeking world-class academic institutions.

The Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings are built on the insights gathered from the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey, the Academic Reputation Survey. Conducted in 12 languages and guided by United Nations data, this survey aims to capture a representative sample of global scholars. Scholars are asked to name up to 15 universities they consider the best in terms of research and teaching, with a weighting of 2:1 favoring research quality. The scores reflect how often an institution is cited as among the best, with the top-ranked university receiving a score of 100.

Recognized as the most comprehensive evaluation of university performance globally, World University Rankings (WUR) 3.0 methodology utilizes 18 meticulously calibrated indicators to assess institutions across five key areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry engagement and international outlook. This robust framework ensures a thorough evaluation, allowing prospective students and academic professionals to understand each university's strengths and contributions to global education and research.

Other Rankings

In 2024 (the most recent ranking), Forbes evaluates colleges and universities based on alumni earnings, net price, net student debt, school quality, timely graduation and the number of Pell Grant recipients.

Forbes revised its methodology in 2018 to put more emphasis on the survey’s three financial factors — earnings, price and debt — and the publication switched to net price (which takes into account the impact of students’ financial aid and the costs of room and board) instead of list price.