The University of California, Santa Barbara (commonly referred to as UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a 1,022-acre (414 ha) site near Goleta, California, United States, 8 miles (13 km) from Santa Barbara and 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944 and is the third-oldest general-education campus in the system. UCSB is one of America's Public Ivy universities, which recognizes top public research universities in the United States. The university is a comprehensive doctoral university and is organized into five colleges and schools offering 87 undergraduate degrees and 55 graduate degrees. UCSB was ranked 40th among "National Universities", 10th among U.S. public universities and 28th among Best Global Universities by U.S. News & World Report 's 2015 rankings. The university was also ranked 37th worldwide by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and 41st worldwide (7th worldwide for engineering) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2014.
