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UC Berkeley is an American dream engine.
- Berkeley has been recognized as the leading university in moving students further up the economic ladder.1
- Berkeley matriculates over 20 percent more Californians now than 10 years ago.2 In-state tuition is locked for six years once a student starts.3
- For Californians earning less than $60,000, the net cost of attending has plummeted by 40 percent since 2007.4
- Tuition for low-income students (net of aid and inflation) has fallen over the last 20 years by 35 percent. Nearly two-thirds of undergraduates receive financial aid.5
- Children from high-income families have an admissions advantage at peer private universities, but not at UC Berkeley.6
- Berkeley educates almost as many Pell Grant students as the eight-university Ivy League.7
- Transfer students (95 percent coming from California’s community college system) represent about one-third of Berkeley’s incoming students. Nearly half of transfer students are the first in their families to attend a four-year university.8
No private university educates at Berkeley’s scale.
- Berkeley enrolls more undergraduates than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia combined.9
We set the standard for public education and research excellence.
- We are the No. 1 public university in all five of the most cited college rankings.10
- 63 (and counting!) Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with Berkeley,11 including four in 2025.12 Berkeley researchers discovered a record of 16 Periodic Table elements.13
- 50 Berkeley graduate divisions, schools, and disciplines rank in the top 10 in the country,14 and 23 undergraduate programs rank in the top 5.15
- Berkeley educates more undergrads who go on to earn a doctorate than any other U.S. university.16
- We are in the top five for granting doctorates and for training tenure-track faculty.17
Berkeley honors its mission of enhancing society and the greater good.
- Our undergraduates produce more funded new enterprises than those of any other university in the world.18
- The world’s most valuable platform for curing genetic disease, called CRISPR, was developed at Berkeley — and won the Nobel Prize in 2020.19
- Berkeley is the all-time top global producer of Peace Corps volunteers.20
- The university’s researchers and students partner with communities across the state to find solutions to problems affecting California residents.21
All of this happens because of the incredible faculty, staff, and students who are part of the Berkeley community.
Have an item to add? Please email chancellor@berkeley.edu.
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Footnotes:
1 Chetty, R., Friedman, J.N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2020). Income segregation and intergenerational mobility across colleges in the United States. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(3), 1567-1633. Based on longitudinal data from the U.S. Departments of Education and Treasury through 2014, the most recent data sets of this kind available.
4 https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/undergraduate-affordability
5 https://inspire.berkeley.edu/get-inspired/calfacts/
6 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/11/upshot/college-income-lookup.html
7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2023/09/19/new-report-challenges-the-ivy-league-to-enroll-more-pell-grant-recipients/ and https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/types-of-aid-at-berkeley/grants/federal-pell-grant/#:~:text=%E2%80%8B27%25%20of%20Undergrads%20Receive,education%20is%20within%20your%20reach
8 https://capitalstrategies.berkeley.edu/anchor-house-transfer-students
10 https://inspire.berkeley.edu/o/the-rationale-and-methodology-behind-berkeleys-aggregated-ranking/
11 https://inspire.berkeley.edu/get-inspired/nobels/
12 https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-wins-5-nobel-prizes-3-days-and-sets-new-world-record
15 https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/09/22/uc-berkeley-named-top-public-school-in-the-country-by-us-news/
16 https://www.highereddatastories.com/2023/10/undergraduate-institutions-of-doctoral.html
17 https://www.highereddive.com/news/Berkeley-Harvard-Michigan-Wisconsin-Stanford-most-faculty/633842/ and NSF.
18 https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/pitchbook-university-rankings