At a Glance
UCSB admits 38.2% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Shown at in-state rates.
Debt at Graduation
44.9%
receive need-based grant aid
$20,043
average debt at graduation
UCSB graduates carry an average of $20,043 in debt.
Merit Aid
923
students received merit aid
$8,594
average merit award
Getting In
UCSB admits 38.2% of applicants.
This school reports SAT section scores but leaves the composite range blank, so there is no mid-50% band to chart.
ACT composite range not reported by this school.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
University of California, Santa Barbara rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
55.1% of UCSB classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At UCSB, 55.1% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
18:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
Live on campus
37%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
UCSB's student body is 31.3% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
UCSB graduates 71.2% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
UCSB graduates 71.2% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
UCSB
71.2%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $41,573*
* In-state cost of attendance. Out-of-state students pay significantly more.
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
84%
Overall 6-yr rate
82%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
93.48%
93.48% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Santa Barbara.
The campus sits on a bluff over the Pacific with a lagoon in the middle of it, ten miles from downtown Santa Barbara. Almost everything social happens in Isla Vista, the student neighbourhood packed between campus and the beach — walkable, loud, cheap by California standards and entirely young. Santa Barbara proper is calmer, more expensive and a bus ride away.
Notable Alumni
Carol W. Greider
Shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of telomerase. She took her biology degree here in 1983 through the College of Creative Studies, the small honours college that lets undergraduates work like graduate researchers.
Class of 1983
Michael Douglas
Two-time Academy Award winner, for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for acting in Wall Street. He graduated here in 1968 in drama.
Class of 1968
Jack Johnson
Sold more than 25 million records worldwide, beginning with Brushfire Fairytales. He came here to study film and graduated in 1997, and his early songs came out of the surf-and-beach world around the campus.
Class of 1997
Kathleen Kennedy
President of Lucasfilm and producer of more than 60 films, including E.T. and the Jurassic Park series. She graduated here in 1975.
Class of 1975
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Santa Barbara, CA
Best For
Traditions
Storke Tower
The 175-foot campanile at the centre of campus, the tallest freestanding structure in the county, with a carillon that students can learn to play.
The Lagoon and Campus Point
A saltwater lagoon and a surf break inside the campus boundary. Students check the surf between classes; the trail around the lagoon is the standard place to walk and think.
Isla Vista
The square mile of student housing next to campus where most undergraduates live after their first year. It is the social centre of the university and shapes the experience more than any single tradition.
Gaucho basketball at the Thunderdome
The Events Center is small, loud and close to the floor, and the Big West games against Cal Poly and UC Irvine are the ones students turn out for.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Santa Barbara
Downtown Santa Barbara and State Street
About 20 minutesRed-tiled Spanish downtown, the wharf and the county courthouse tower. The standard trip off campus when students want somewhere that is not a student neighbourhood.
Los Padres National Forest
About 30 minutesMountains directly behind the city, with hiking that climbs out of the fog into hot, dry chaparral and views back over the Channel Islands.
Channel Islands National Park
About an hour to the Ventura boatFive islands off the coast, reachable by a ferry from Ventura. Kayaking, sea caves and no development at all.
Los Angeles
About two hoursClose enough for a concert, a museum or an internship interview, far enough that it is a trip rather than a habit.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Santa Barbara Airport (SBA)
About 10 minutes from campus
For international flights: Los Angeles International (LAX) — about 2 hours by car.
Pro sports nearby
- Los Angeles Dodgers MLBAbout 2 hours away
- Los Angeles Lakers NBAAbout 2 hours away
- Los Angeles Rams NFLAbout 2 hours away
Career Proximity
A research campus with a small, unusually deep technology cluster around it, and Los Angeles two hours south.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Appfolio
- Procore Technologies
- Raytheon
- The Trade Desk
- Sonos
Goleta and the Santa Barbara technology corridor, with Los Angeles about two hours south
Who Thrives Here
Santa Barbara admits 38.2% and, like every UC campus, does not read SAT or ACT scores — the file is coursework, GPA, essays and what a student has actually done, which is worth knowing before spending a senior autumn on testing. It is a genuine research university at undergraduate scale: 23,091 undergraduates, an 18:1 student-faculty ratio, and 55.1% of class sections under 20. Outcomes are strong and the finishing rate is the number to price — 84.0% graduate within six years but 71.2% within four, so a fifth year is common enough to budget for. 93.5% come back for a second year. The honest catch is money: aid covers 82.4% of demonstrated need rather than all of it, and graduates who borrow leave owing about $20,043. The other thing to understand before applying is where students live. Only 37.0% are in university housing, and the rest are largely in Isla Vista, the dense square mile of student apartments between campus and the ocean. That arrangement defines the social life here more than any club or team does, and a student who wants a conventional dorm-and-quad four years should look hard at it.