The Top Public Colleges Ranked For 2015 By U.S. News & World Report

For the seventeenth year in a row, University of California-Berkeley is the top public school in America according to U.S. News and World. To put that in perspective: there are high school seniors applying for college now who have never lived in a world where Berkeley is not the best public school.

Predictably, more UCs fill up the list, making up half of the top ten public colleges and universities. The seven best schools this year are exactly the same as last year's top seven, giving us major deja vu.

Behind Berkeley, the UC campuses at San Diego, Davis, Santa Barbara and Irvine all made the top 11. After a jump into the top ten last year, Penn State University bounced down to the fourteenth spot, tied with the University of Florida and University of Washington.

This year U.S. News published crime data from each school, in response to pressure from activists, but they did not factor it into the rankings. The crime information also only covers the three most recent years of data: 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Note: Some of the schools tied, so there may be numbers repeating in the top 17.