Harry Mok, UC Newsroom
Eight University of California undergraduate campuses are included in the Princeton Review’s new guidebook of the 200 most affordable colleges in the country.
Five UC campuses — UC Berkeley, 17th; UCLA, 26th; UC San Diego, 31st; UC Santa Barbara, 32nd and UC Irvine, 42nd — are in the top 50 of “Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Best Value Colleges and What It Takes to Get In.”
UC Davis, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz also are profiled in the book.
“We strongly recommend these schools. They deliver outstanding academics while working to be affordable to students with need — offering generous financial aid or charging a relatively low cost of attendance (or both)," said Robert Franek, the Princeton Review's senior vice president/publisher and lead author of the book. “Plus, their students graduate with great career prospects.”
At all UC undergraduate campuses, 42 percent of the students are Pell Grant recipients from low-income families, 41 percent are the first in their families to attend college and 55 percent have their full tuition covered by financial aid programs.
UC students also graduate at a high rate: Eighty-three percent of undergraduates earn a degree, compared with the national average of 60 percent of undergraduates.
“We are pleased that UC San Diego’s return-on-investment for our students is once again highly ranked,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “UC San Diego’s stellar academic programs and outstanding faculty prepare our students to be successful in their careers and trailblazers in their fields.”
Princeton Review developed a return-on-education rating system to evaluate 650 universities and select the 200 worth including in “Colleges That Pay You Back.”
The rating system measures 40 weighted data points that include academics, cost, financial aid, student debt and graduation rates along with survey information on alumni salaries and job satisfaction from PayScale.com.
UC campuses are routinely profiled and make top-ranked lists from the Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report, Washington Monthly and other publications.
