The University of California, Santa Barbara (commonly referred to as UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public research university in Santa Barbara, California. It is one of the 10 campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a 1,022-acre (4.14 km2) site near Goleta, bordering the Pacific Ocean. UCSB’s sister schools are UC Berkeley and UCLA.
Founded in 1891 as an independent teachers’ college by Anna Blake Coleman, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944 and is now organized into five colleges and one graduate school. The Colleges of Letters & Science, Engineering, Creative Studies, and Humanities & Fine Arts each contain several departments offering bachelor’s degrees; while most departments also offer graduate programs leading to master’s degrees or doctorates. In addition to these academic units, UCSB operates two semi-autonomous affiliated institutions: the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
UC Santa Barbara is consistently ranked among the top universities in the United States by various publications; typically ranking within the top 30 nationwide according to U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges guidebook. In 2019–2020 alone, twelve different disciplines at UCSB were ranked among the top ten in their respective fields by U.S News. Additionally, seven programs were ranked within the global top 100 by QS World University Rankings, while five others were placed within North America’s top 50 by Times Higher Education World University Rankings. For 2021–2022 academics year however only two disciplines—physics and astronomy—remained among world’s elite according to both THE rankings and QS rankings respectively; which nevertheless represents a significant increase from prior years when only one discipline each was so highly regarded—computer science (THE) and earth sciences (QS). More broadly across all subjects combined however both rating agencies still place UCSB firmly within their global lists of outstanding institutions; with THE placing it 58th overall worldwide for 2021–2022 while QS ranks it 63rd globally for 2022.