2025 College Rankings

The University of California–San Diego is considered a “public Ivy,” and like so many other public Ivies, its suffers from deleterious trends that undermine its educational mission.

UC–San Diego has a relatively politicized administration. The university has signed on to commitments that have nothing to do with education—e.g., land acknowledgments and environmental protection pledges. In the Students for Fair Admissions case at the Supreme Court, UC–San Diego filed an amicus brief in favor of affirmative action, signaling a lack of respect for merit in higher education—a tendency underscored by the school’s “test blind” admissions policy, meaning that it does not consider prospective students’ SAT or ACT scores. Unsurprisingly, UC–San Diego has not adopted institutional neutrality, giving it leeway to weigh in on public controversies.

The school is deeply committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Every faculty job listing requires a DEI statement. UC–San Diego employs a large DEI bureaucracy, with more than three employees for every 1,000 students, and employs a Chief Diversity Officer to ensure that every employee stays on message.

UC–San Diego has been unwilling to curb the rise in radical campus anti-Semitism in recent years. A significant number of professors have pushed for an academic boycott of Israel, and several departments have committed themselves to that stance—a clear sign that activism is pervasive within the professoriate. Radical student activists have also taken up the cause. In the 2023–24 school year, the student governing body passed a resolution endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. To its credit, the administration rejected this extreme measure. In violation of school policy, however, it allowed an encampment pushing for the same BDS goal to linger for nearly a week in 2024. The federal government announced in 2025 that it is investigating UC–San Diego for failing to confront these issues adequately.

UC–San Diego ranks in the middle of the pack on our various measures of student free speech and tolerance. There are more than three liberal students for every conservative. Even with that ideological majority, many still are hesitant to speak freely among their peers. Nearly half of students tell the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that they censor themselves at least once per month. The administration seems to condone this spirit of censorship. In 2023, it rejected a bid from the school’s College Republicans chapter to bring the conservative cultural commentator Matt Walsh to campus because his speech might make students feel “unsafe,” “not comfortable,” and “offended and hurt.”

The curriculum at UC–San Diego is in a sorry state. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school a C in its What Will They Learn? ratings, which assign letter grades based on how many of seven core subjects are required in the core curriculum or general education program. The school requires its students to take DEI-focused courses to graduate but neglects more academically serious subjects, such as history and government.

That said, the school offers good economic value for students. It takes students 1.3 years, on average, to pay back the cost of their education, well under our overall 2.3-year average. Six-year graduation and retention rates are higher than predicted, based on data from SAT scores and Pell Grant recipients. The school’s six-year graduation rate is predicted to be 84 percent but rises as high as 88 percent. Graduates tend to succeed in their chosen fields: median annual earnings ten years after initial enrollment slightly overperform expectations, by about $1,000.