UCs would do extremely well compared to similarly ranked colleges, if USNWR captured some good metric about SES diversity. For example in the NYT mobility study at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/university-of-california-los-angeles , 4 of the 7 highly selective publics with the most economic mobility were UCs – UCI, UCLA, UCB, and UCSD. They all had more economic mobility than any private college that is ranked well in USNWR, and they all had more than double the economic mobility of any Ivy.
However, USNWR rankings doesn’t use a good metric about SES diversity or SES mobility. They also do not directly rank based on % on Pell kids. Instead they rank the Pell kids’ graduation rate, which largely follows non-Pell graduation rate. I expect that highly selective Ivy-type private colleges do quite well in this category, including ones with a low percentage of Pell kids.
Nearly half of the new debt category is percent of students claiming federal loans, so I expect UCs being more SES diverse hurts them in this category overall. A ranking of the “national universities” that I’d expect to do the the best in the new debt ranking overall is below (combination of average debt of federal FA recipients and portion claiming federal loans). Unlike Caltech, Harvard, and similar; UCs have most loans as federal rather than institutional. For example, Caltech’s mostly institutional loans do not incur a USNWR penalty, but UCs mostly federal loans do incur USNWR penalty. I skipped University of Puerto Rico and some other lower ranked colleges, so actual rankings are worse than listed.
As summarized below, I think this category might help UCB and UCD slightly, but would probably slightly hurt the other 7.
Colleges Best in New USNWR Federal Debt Category
- Princeton – 4% and average of $10k
- Caltech – 5% and average of $9k
- Harvard – 2% and average of $13k
- Stanford – 8% and average of $11k
- Yale – 8% and average of $13k
- MIT – 11% and average of $13k
- Rice – 12% and average of $12k
- CUNY: City – 13% and average of $12k
- Vanderbilt – 12% and average of $15k
- Chicago – 11% and average of $17k
- BYU – 13% and average of $15k
- Duke – 20% and average of $11k
- Penn – 14% and average of $19k
- WUSTL – 18% and average of $16k
15. UC Berkeley – 22% and average of $14k - Northwestern – 21% and average of $15k
- Dartmouth – 26% and average of $12k
- Brown – 23% and average of $15k
- Tufts – 23% and average of $16k
- U Florida – 24% and average of $16k
- U Washington – 26% and average of $15k
- Georgetown – 27% and average of $15k
- Utah State – 29% and average of $14k
- SDSU – 28% and average of $15k
- Cornell – 31% and average of $14k
…
~30. UCLA – 32% and average of $15k
~30. UC Davis – 34% and average of 13k
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~40. UCSB-- 35% and average of $15k
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~45. UCI – 35% and average of $16k
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~55. UCSD – 36% and average of $17k
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High - UCM / UCR / UCSC – 42 to 48% and average of $19k