UC Berkeley once again ranked #1 public university in the U.S. for architecture and the built environment
As the #1 public university in the nation for architecture and the built environment, the College of Environmental Design upholds UC Berkeley’s public mission: enhancing society and the greater good through research and design and providing pathways to success for students from all backgrounds.
In the newly released 2026 QS World University Rankings, UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) has once again ranked as the #1 public university in the U.S. for architecture and the built environment. It has held this position for 12 years, ever since QS started ranking these disciplines.
Berkeley’s hold on the number one slot among U.S. public universities — and its consistent placement as the #3 overall program in the nation (trailing only MIT and Harvard) — solidifies its reputation as the top destination for students looking for a world-class education at an institution dedicated to furthering the public good.
Public isn’t just a funding status — it’s a mission
Being ranked the #1 public matters. UC Berkeley was founded in 1868 as California’s first land-grant college with the stated goals of fostering experimentation and research to solve real-world problems, sharing research innovations with the public, and serving communities both in the state and beyond. This means that new knowledge and technologies created at UC Berkeley don’t stay locked in an ivory tower.
Designers and researchers at CED are actively seeking ways to improve the built environment. In keeping with UC Berkeley’s public mission, they share these discoveries broadly, with government agencies, nonprofits, and community groups. And many CED faculty and students go beyond sharing their work with the public: through community-engaged practices, they work collaboratively with groups all over the state to solve problems that affect them, from sea level rise and wildfire prevention to affordable housing and pedestrian safety.
Expanding access to higher education
UC Berkeley’s public mission also means that, for more than 150 years, it has been committed to being an institution of higher learning where all people can pursue excellence in scholarship, leadership, and innovation. For example, the university began admitting women in 1870, just two years after its founding. A notable alum of those early decades is famed architect Julia Morgan, who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1894 and went on to become the first female architect licensed in California.
Today, CED educates the campus’s largest percentage of first-generation students: 46% of architecture undergraduates and 39% of undergraduate students overall in the college are the first in their families to attend a four-year institution of higher learning. CED also enrolls a significant number of students receiving federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to those with exceptional financial need: 42% of students in the Department of Architecture and 36% of CED students receive these grants.
Motivated by the University of California’s commitment to being an engine of economic mobility, CED provides pathways to success for students from all backgrounds, empowering them to become the next generation of leaders in their fields.
Fulfilling UC Berkeley’s mission of enhancing society and the greater good
Since its founding in 1959, CED has been committed to UC Berkeley’s public mission to serve society — and to expanding the definition of the society it serves. Several key figures laid the groundwork for Berkeley’s unique approach, including Raymond Lifchez (1932–2023), a pioneer of universal design who transformed how architects teach and think about disability and accessibility; Clare Cooper Marcus (1934–2026), an advocate for user-centered design, who studied how low-income families, children, and the elderly use and experience space; Professor Emeritus Randolph “Randy” Hester, who focuses on empowering disenfranchised communities to participate in the democratic planning of their cities; and Professor Emerita Mary Comerio, an expert on disaster resilience who shifted the focus of seismic design from “saving buildings” to “saving communities,” prioritizing recovery for vulnerable populations.
Today’s faculty carry on CED’s public mission through design and research that improves cities, landscapes, and lives. Liz Gálvez is working to adapt buildings in the American Southwest to extreme heat; Anna Livia Brand explores how racial landscapes are constructed and contested to better understand how to design more inclusive cities; Jason Corburn’s work has led toward urban gun violence reduction by treating violence as a public health epidemic rather than just a criminal issue; Charisma Acey focuses on ensuring that poverty-stricken urban areas around the globe have access to clean water, sanitation, and sustainable food systems; Kristina Hill’s research on air quality is arming communities with real-time data to improve health outcomes; and research from CED’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation regularly informs California legislation addressing the state’s housing crisis.
These are just a few examples of how UC Berkeley’s public mission inspires community-engaged, action-oriented research at CED.
UC Berkeley’s continued dominance as the #1 public university in the U.S. for architecture and the built environment is a validation of CED’s belief that excellence does not have to be exclusive, and that rigorous academic research, broadly shared, can empower communities to enact change. And the QS ranking, which measures academic reputation as well as employer sentiment, shows that a CED degree impresses potential employers as well as graduate school admissions committees. CED alums, undergraduate and graduate and across disciplines, go out into the world and make a difference.