| An assessment carried out by AllAboutUni reveals | | | | (Stanford, California Institute of Technology, University |
| that California has a relatively low density of the | | | | of Southern California) and one CSU university (San |
| World's Top-500 universities compared to industrialised | | | | Diego State University). |
| countries in the world. is an independent, global and | | | | An earlier assessment carried out by found that 36% |
| interactive website where visitors can obtain | | | | (n=57) - more than one in three - of the US universities |
| information about universities (global rankings, student | | | | in the World's Top-500 are located in just five States: |
| reviews, university news and campus pictures). | | | | New York (15), California (13), Texas (13), |
| The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) | | | | Massachusetts (9) and Pennsylvania (7) (click here). |
| is produced by the Institute of Higher Education at the | | | | The assessment also found that the universities are |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several indicators of | | | | not evenly distributed, with California having a higher |
| academic or research performance are used to | | | | representation at the top of the list: in the World's |
| establish the ranking, these include highly cited | | | | Top-25 universities, the distribution is California (6), New |
| researchers, articles indexed in major citation indices | | | | York (2), Massachusetts (2), and Pennsylvania (1) and |
| and staff winning Nobel Prizes. | | | | Texas (0). |
| The World’s Top-500 universities (2008) are mainly | | | | The six Californian universities in the World's Top-25 |
| located in Europe (n=210; 40%), the Americas (n=190; | | | | universities are: Stanford (ranked 2nd), UC - Berkeley |
| 40%) and the Asian/Pacific region (n=100; 20%). There | | | | (3rd), California Institute of Technology (6th), UC - Los |
| are 159 (32%) universities located in the United States | | | | Angeles (13th), UC - San Diego (14th) and UC - San |
| (US), of which 13 are located in California (click here). | | | | Francisco (18th). |
| California has a population of 37 million inhabitants, | | | | In order to make inter-country comparisons, calculates |
| making it the most populated State in the US. It makes | | | | the number of universities in the World’s Top-500 |
| a very important contribution to the US economy and | | | | per million inhabitants. The overall number of universities |
| taken alone it has the world’s eighth largest | | | | per million inhabitants is 0.5 for industrialised countries. |
| economy in the world (in terms of Gross Domestic | | | | An earlier assessment found that small countries in |
| Product). | | | | Western Europe (Sweden (1.2), Finland (1.1) and |
| There are both public and private universities in | | | | Switzerland (1.0) and New Zealand (1.2) has the |
| California. The public universities are organized as | | | | highest number of universities per million inhabitants. |
| follows: the University of California (UC) universities (10 | | | | The number of universities in the World’s Top-500 |
| campuses e.g. UC - Berkeley and UC - Los Angeles) | | | | universities that are located in California is 0.4 per million |
| which has a combined student body of more than | | | | inhabitants. Large industrialized countries have the |
| 191,000 students, the California State Universities (CSU) | | | | following figures: Australia (0.7), the Netherlands (0.7), |
| which has over 400,000 students and the California | | | | United Kingdom (0.7), Canada (0.6), United States (0.5), |
| Community Colleges system which provides lower | | | | Germany (0.5), France (0.4), Italy (0.4), Spain (0.2) and |
| division courses and has a student population of over | | | | Japan (0.2). |
| 2.9 million. | | | | In conclusion, despite California having some of the |
| The thirteen universities located in California that are in | | | | best universities in the world (e.g. Stanford, UC - |
| the World’s Top-500 universities are distributed as | | | | Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology), the |
| follows: nine UC universities (Berkeley, Los Angeles, | | | | overall density of the World’s Top-500 universities |
| San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Irvine, Davis, | | | | is relatively low compared to industrialised countries in |
| Riverside and Santa Cruz), three private universities | | | | the world. |