UC Berkeley is the top public university in the world. There are many rankings, and each has a different focus, and their own source of noise. The more robust picture is a weighted average across them, as shown here using equal weights across the five most commonly cited university rankings: USNews Best Colleges, USNews Global, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Times Higher Education
| Ranking | University | Average Rank - Public |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UC Berkeley | 1.2 |
| 2 | Michigan | 4.8 |
| 3 | UC San Diego | 6.4 |
| 4 | UC Los Angeles | 6.8 |
| 5 | Georgia Tech | 7.8 |
| 6 | UC Davis | 10.2 |
| 7 | University of North Carolina | 10.4 |
| 8 | UT Austin | 11.2 |
| 9 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | 11.8 |
| 10 | UC Irvine | 13.6 |
Note: The month each year that each ranking is typically updated is USNews Best Colleges–Sept, USNews Global–June, Forbes–Aug, WSJ–Sept, and Times Higher Education–October. October is thus a good month to refresh each year. Both the USNews Global ranking and the The World rankings include non-US universities; when calculating averages in the Public column, only US public universities are included in the calculation.