California has had a rough few years. Wildfires, drought, flash flooding and mudslides have devastated parts of the state and driven away major homeowners insurance providers. Retailers are leaving San Francisco en masse and tech companies—including Meta, Slack, Salesforce and PayPal—are slowly moving jobs out of that city, subleasing or selling their office space in favor of remote work. Housing is unaffordable for many and homelessness is growing. Meanwhile, one California jewel continues to shine—its state college system.

Four of the University of California’s 10 campuses earned a spot in the top 25 on Forbes’ 2023 America’s Top Colleges list: the University of California Berkeley (#5); the University of California, Los Angeles (#7); the University of California, San Diego (#21); and the University of California, Santa Barbara (#24). All eight Ivy League colleges made the top 25, but only one other public school—the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (#23) made that cut.

Despite some recent population decline, California is still by far the most populous state—around 39 million people call the Golden State home. Yet the state’s colleges still outperform when compared to publics in other big states. For example, Texas, home to 30 million people, counts just three public schools in the top 100—The University of Texas at Austin (#31); Texas A & M University, College Station (#50); and The University of Texas at Dallas (#97). New York, with a population of nearly 20 million, counts only two public schools —Binghamton University (#52) and Stony Brook University (#96)—in the top 100.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhit...

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