According to a ranking of U.S. computer science undergraduate programs serving international students, UC San Diego ranks #4 nationwide. The website College Values Online used data published separately by the Institute of Education Studies and Payscale.com to factor into the ranking, and the computer science program at UC San Diego was the highest-performing UC campus on the list -- eking out a win over the #5-ranked UC Berkeley program.
"UCSD has a very large international student population and a top-notch computer science program," according to the website. The ranking considered tuition rates, return on investment, percentage of international students, and accreditations or other 'distinguishing characteristics'. One key reason why UC San Diego outperformed UC Berkeley is that 20 percent of its students are international -- compared to only 14 percent UC Berkeley. The #1 university in the ranking was the Florida Institute of Technology, in part because 33 percent of its enrollment are international students. "Students in the B.S. program can choose to specialize in bioinformatics," according to the report, citing other computer science research areas including artificial intelligence, security and cryptography, human-computer interaction, and embedded systems and software.