Local Universities Make U.S. News & World Report's Top 50

By City News Service

Trailing Caltech, which was in 10th place, crosstown rivals UCLA and USC shared 23rd place with two other schools Tuesday when U.S. News & World Report released its annual rankings of the nation's best public universities.

UCLA and USC were in 23rd place along with Carnegie Mellon and the University of Virginia. The two L.A. schools were tied at 24th with Virginia last year.

UC Berkeley tied with Georgetown for 20th among national universities. Other UC campuses in this year's top 50 schools were UC Davis and UC San Diego - - they were tied in 39th place -- Santa Barbara in 41st place and UC Irvine in 49th.

The top 10 schools were the same as last year, though not in the same order. Princeton was first, followed by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Duke, MIT -- Duke and MIT were tied -- the University of Pennsylvania, and Caltech, which was in 10th place.

What is your favorite public university in the nation? What do you think of these rankings? Tell us in the comments.