UC Riverside ranked No. 25 in the nation among public universities in Washington Monthly’s annual college rankings.
In Washington Monthly’s overall rankings, including public and private universities, UCR was No. 50 among 1,421 colleges ranked, or in the top 3%.
The Washington Monthly “Best Colleges for Your Tuition (and Tax) Dollars” rankings do not focus on performance, but rather reward universities for serving low-income students with manageable cost, low student debt, and high outcomes.
Among UCs, Riverside at No. 50 ranked higher than all but three of the eight undergraduate campuses. UC Davis was No. 35 overall, Berkeley No. 42, and UCLA No. 47. Campuses including Irvine, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, which fare well on most national rankings, ranked below UC Riverside.
UCR’s 2026 publics (No. 25) and overall (No. 50) performance match its Washington Monthly placements for 2025.
The “Best Colleges for Your Tuition (and Tax) Dollars” list ranks universities based on four broad categories: affordability (price), outcomes (eight-year graduation rates and post-graduation earnings), service, and access.
Access speaks to how well colleges provide access to “nonwealthy” students, including through factoring Pell Grant awards. In the access category, for the second consecutive year, UCR tied for No. 15 among the 1,421 colleges.
On a supplemental list, “2026 Best Colleges for Research,” UCR ranked No. 29 among publics, and No. 52 overall, mirroring its 2025 Washington Monthly performance. That list includes 142 universities, and considers research expenditures, PhDs awarded, and faculty awards.
As with most college rankings, Washington Monthly’s data is largely a curation of information from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, from the National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS is the product of an annual survey from every college, university, and technical or vocational institution. Institutions that receive federal financial aid are compelled to participate.
Source: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2026/08/31/washington-monthly-ranks-ucr-top-3-us-universities