The Bay Area is home to many top colleges and universities. This abundance of world-class higher education institutions is a key factor ensuring that the Bay Area will continue to innovate and thrive in the years ahead. A college education is one of the most important and costly investments that prospective students will ever make. For this reason, the editors of U.S. News provide students and their families with as much information as possible about the comparative merits of the educational programs at America’s colleges and universities. Many Bay Area and Central Valley institutions made it to U.S. News’ top colleges listing for 2011.

Out of a total of 262 institutions, the top six local National universities were Stanford (5), UC Berkeley (22), UC Davis (39), UC Santa Cruz (72), University of the Pacific (99), and University of San Francisco (117). National universities are different from regional colleges and universities, because they offer doctoral programs and typically have a strong emphasis on research.

Nine local institutions made the list of top western regional universities. The top three were Santa Clara University (2), Mills College in Oakland (4), and St. Mary’s College in Moraga (12). Three local regional colleges were also given top honors this year. A total of 126 western regional universities and 48 western regional colleges were considered for the U.S. News’ 2011 ranking.

To rank colleges, U.S. News first placed each school into a category based on its mission and location. U.S. News then gathered data from and about each school in 16 areas related to academic excellence. Each indicator was assigned a weight based on which measures of quality U.S. News judgments considered to be important. Finally, the colleges were ranked based on their composite weighted score.

The following U.S. News top higher education institutions are within 100 miles of Dublin, CA: