unitid 110705 · Santa Barbara, CA · public 4-year · suburb (midsize)
University of California-Santa Barbara
Public university in California, US
- founded
- 1891
- enrollment 2023
- 28,257
- predominant degree
- Bachelor's
- website
- ucsb.edu
- motto
- “Let there be light”
The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UC Santa Barbara joined the University of California system in 1944. It is the third-oldest campus in the system, after Berkeley, and UCLA. wikipedia rev 1364251252 ↗
scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within public 4-years
The record
admission rate
33%
4th pctl among public 4-years
undergraduates
23,113
91st pctl among public 4-years
Pell share
28%
undergrads on Pell grants
36th pctl among public 4-years
completion
83%
finish within 150% time
95th pctl among public 4-years
sticker cost / yr
$41,573
100th pctl among public 4-years
avg net price / yr
$16,109
after aid, aided students
73rd pctl among public 4-years
median earnings, 10 yr
$74,915
after entry, Title IV students
95th pctl among public 4-years
median grad debt
$13,993
25th pctl among public 4-years
what families actually pay
Cost
Sticker price is a fiction for most families — net price is what aided students pay after grants, by family income.
Average net price by family income, 2023–24 aid cohort
Families earning under $30k paid $9,231 per year after aid.
Dashed hollow marks are privacy-suppressed brackets — not zero. Band: middle half of public 4-years (all incomes).
Who enrolls, by family income
- 0-30k37%
- 30-48k20%
- 48-75knot reported
- 75-110knot reported
- 110k+not reported
- Median family income
- $36,166
- First-generation students
- 42%
- In-state tuition & fees
- $16,414
earnings · debt · programs
Outcomes
Median earnings after entry, working grads with federal aid
Ten years out, the median graduate earns 5.4× the median graduate debt.
Earnings cover federally aided (Title IV) students only.
What programs pay — top fields of study
| program | grads | earn 5 yr | debt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economics. | 696 | $107,948 | $13,516 |
| Sociology. | 692 | $59,183 | $13,500 |
| Research and Experimental Psychology. | 650 | $66,321 | $15,000 |
| Communication and Media Studies. | 620 | $73,857 | $13,018 |
| Biology, General. | 391 | $76,068 | $14,586 |
| Statistics. | 355 | $110,783 | $17,500 |
| Natural Resources Conservation and Research. | 338 | $66,752 | $16,533 |
| Political Science and Government. | 322 | $73,638 | $16,485 |
| English Language and Literature, General. | 184 | $58,240 | $17,550 |
| Applied Mathematics. | 184 | $109,292 | $17,000 |
| Physics. | 183 | $104,149 | $15,982 |
| Film/Video and Photographic Arts. | 174 | $52,687 | $15,000 |
— is privacy suppression at small programs, never zero. Earnings are median, 5 years after completing.
annual scorecard files, 1996–2026
Trajectory
Line breaks are years where the measure wasn't collected — a gap is not a zero.
Admission rate
Price per year
- sticker
- net
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
Undergraduates
wikidata · 3,239 people recorded
Memory
Wikidata is not an alumni census: a person appears only when volunteer editors record them. Counts measure the archive's memory - access x achievement x documentation - never placement rates or institutional quality.
Field fingerprint — share of recorded alumni by field
Women among recorded alumni, by birth decade
People without a recorded gender are excluded; decades with fewer than 5 recorded alumni are dropped.
Wikipedia attention
monthly article views since 2015
most recorded occupationsresearcher (1,050) · basketball player (465) · university teacher (300) · computer scientist (97) · writer (63) · physicist (61) · academic (54) · politician (54)
Nobel laureates who studied here
- Carol Greider Medicine 2009
The portrait wall
Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).
Gwyneth Paltrow
129 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Michael Douglas
99 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Carol Greider
79 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tera Patrick
54 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Benjamin Bratt
44 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Jack Johnson
42 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Joseph M. Acaba
40 wikis · Public domain
Richard Serra
40 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Steve Aoki
40 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Robert Ballard
38 wikis · CC BY 2.0
Robby Krieger
36 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Edi Gathegi
36 wikis · CC BY 2.0
Jerry Trainor
35 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Aja Naomi King
33 wikis · CC BY-SA 2.0
Barbara Rush
30 wikis · Public domain
nearest neighbors in sector
Compare with peers
built 2026-07-17
Provenance
- U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard, 2026-06 release. Earnings cover federally aided (Title IV) students only. Suppressed values are null, never imputed.
- Annual Scorecard files 1996-2026. A null in early years usually means the measure was not yet collected, not zero.
- Coordinates and locale describe the campus address, not where students live.
- Wikidata is not an alumni census: a person appears only when volunteer editors record them. Counts measure the archive's memory - access x achievement x documentation - never placement rates or institutional quality.
- Images are from Wikimedia Commons under free licenses. Render the credit line (artist + license) with every image.
- Lead text from Wikipedia (revision 1364251252), CC BY-SA 4.0.