SAN DIEGO — Two San Diego-based universities have been named to Forbes’ list of top 25 public colleges in the U.S.

San Diego State University and UC San Diego were among the seven California universities to make the list, which looked at a variety of factors including return on investment, student success, student debt, and alumni leadership and influence.

You can find more information on how the rankings were determined here.

UCSD, which was one of six University of California schools on the list, came in at the third spot in the rankings. The La Jolla-based university is renowned for their research program, with the school spending more than $1.7 billion on research in fiscal year 2023, according to Forbes.

Coming in at number 16 on the rankings was SDSU, San Diego’s oldest higher education insitution.

“San Diego State University continues to rise in the quality of our educational experience and in shaping a better future for every one of our graduates,” said SDSU President Adela de la Torre in response to the Forbes ranking. “Our students are succeeding at unprecedented rates, and our growing partnerships across the public and private sectors are creating tremendous employment and social-mobility opportunities for our family of nearly 500,000 SDSU alumni.” 

Forbes also released a ranking of the top 500 colleges in the U.S. for 2023 and UCSD and SDSU came in at #21 and #43, respectively.