UC Santa Barbara

Dude, let's hit the beach! And then we'll hit the books at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), which is located about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, where the Santa Ynez Mountains meet the Pacific Ocean. The coastal campus sits on nearly 1,000 acres, and is home to some 21,000 students and 1,000 faculty members. UCSB has five schools and a graduate division, offering more than 200 majors, degrees, and credentials. The school was established in 1909 as the Santa Barbara State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics and joined the University of California system in 1944. Its faculty includes five Nobel Prize winners.