by our College Data Analytics Team
In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.
University of California - Santa Cruz was awarded 65 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general psychology.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
UC Santa Cruz landed the #91 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when UC Santa Cruz held the #102 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
UC Santa Cruz also holds the #13 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.
See all of the rankings for University of California - Santa Cruz.
University of California - Santa Cruz has an acceptance rate of 47%, which means the school is serious about who it admits. Take your time in putting together a strong application that highlights why you are a good fit for UC Santa Cruz.
The student to faculty ratio at University of California - Santa Cruz is 23 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1. This may indicate that some of your classes will be larger in size than they would be at other schools. However, upper level classes will probably be smaller.
When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at University of California - Santa Cruz is 84%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
University of California - Santa Cruz has a freshmen retention rate of 88%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At UC Santa Cruz the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 55%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at University of California - Santa Cruz.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 17,207 undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz with 16,521 being full-time and 686 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,344 | $11,034 | $14,732 | $22,359 | $32,929 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of UC Santa Cruz, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At UC Santa Cruz, approximately 36% of students took out student loans averaging $6,519 a year. That adds up to $26,076 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at UC Santa Cruz is 1.0%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.
Get more details about paying for University of California - Santa Cruz.
See which majors at University of California - Santa Cruz make the most money.
Get more details about the location of University of California - Santa Cruz.
Contact details for UC Santa Cruz are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1011 |
| Phone: | 831-459-0111 |
| Website: | www.ucsc.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Science | 657 | $75,150 |
| General Psychology | 446 | $30,730 |
| Business/Managerial Economics | 287 | $52,029 |
| Cell Biology & Anatomical Sciences | 250 | $45,088 |
| Sociology | 227 | $28,495 |
| Linguistics & Comparative Literature | 203 | $21,793 |
| Economics | 199 | $50,518 |
| Film, Video & Photographic Arts | 188 | $23,614 |
| General Biology | 184 | $37,651 |
| Political Science & Government | 178 | $31,882 |
Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.
In 2022-2023, 4,168 students took at least one online class at University of California - Santa Cruz. This is a decrease from the 17,161 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 4,168 | 98 |
| 2021-2022 | 17,161 | 5,761 |
| 2020-2021 | 18,592 | 16,945 |
| 2018-2019 | 853 | 0 |
Learn more about online learning at University of California - Santa Cruz.
If you’re considering University of California - Santa Cruz, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against UC Santa Cruz? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.