U.S. News – ECE & COE Among the Best
UCSB’s College of Engineering (COE) and departments rank among the nation’s best in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Engineering Schools report from peer surveys across the country
From the COE News article “UCSB Materials Ranks First Among Public Universities in U.S. News and World Report's 2025 Graduate Rankings
The rankings of graduate programs were based entirely on peer surveys submitted by department heads at public and private universities. UCSB’s materials program tied for first among public universities and third overall out of 118 public and private institutions, climbing one spot among public universities and two slots overall compared to 2024. The latest rankings marked the 23rd straight year that the materials program has ranked among the top three public institutions. The chemical engineering program ranked in the top ten among public universities for the 24th year in a row, slated this year at No. 9 and at No. 14 overall out of 135 institutions. The mechanical engineering program continued its ascent in the rankings and was listed at No. 15 among public universities and 24th out of 185 total universities. The program has moved up nine spots overall and four slots among public universities since 2023. The computer science graduate program remained at No. 13 among public universities and 27th out of 210 total institutions, while the electrical and computer engineering program tied for 15th among public universities and 27th out of 188 schools.
As a whole, the UCSB College of Engineering graduate program tied for No. 16 among public universities and 31st overall out of 196 institutions. Information used to compile the college rankings included statistical data and surveys submitted by engineering deans and recruiters. The UCSB engineering program ranked fourth among public universities and tenth overall out of 199 universities in the percentage of faculty who are members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), at 10.3 percent.
The 2025 rankings further demonstrates that the COE stands among the world’s elite programs, a fact reflected in UCSB’s ranking among the top two public universities in terms of research impact in engineering and physical sciences for the past fourteen years in the annual Leiden Rankings. Produced by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the Leiden Rankings are based on bibliographic data on scientific publications from the Web of Science. In the 2024 rankings, which evaluated data from 2019-2022, UCSB ranked second among public universities and eighth overall with 3.3 percent of its publications belonging to the top one percent of their field. UCSB also ranked No. 8 worldwide in the inaugural Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Rankings. A total of 749 universities from 92 countries and territories were evaluated through eleven metrics. The survey recognized research projects as being interdisciplinary only if they involved two or more scientific disciplines from computer science, engineering, life sciences, and physical sciences.
