The 25 Most Diverse Schools

The University of California's Berkeley outpost has landed on quite a few of NEWSWEEK's "best of" lists--five to be exact. The school is among the most desirable urban schools (No. 16), most desirable large schools (No. 5), most diverse (No. 18), most gay-friendly (No. 2) and best schools with the best weather (No. 9).

That the school nabbed the No. 2 spot on NEWSWEEK's gay-friendly list is no surprise to students. "Berkeley is home to a proud LGBTIQQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer and Questioning) community, which has a large presence on campus and makes the environment feel more tolerant," writes one student on CollegeProwler.com.

The public school has an undergraduate enrollment of just over 25,500, 53 percent of whom were women in the fall of 2009. At 42 percent, the Asian-American community makes up the majority of the student body, while Caucasians make up 31 percent, followed by Hispanics at 12 percent and African-Americans at 4 percent. The student-to-faculty ratio is 15 to 1.

Tuition at the University of California, Berkeley for the 2010-2011 school year is $12,461 for in-state students (more than three-quarters of Berkeley's student body hails from California) and $35,340 for out-of-state residents, with 65 percent of all undergraduates receiving some form of aid. What's more, Berkeley claims to educate more economically disadvantaged students than all of the Ivy League universities combined, with 29 percent of its students receiving Pell Grants.

To rank colleges and universities by diversity, we took a broad view of related issues, including ethnicity, geographic origin, economic status, gender, and sexual orientation. Read more about our methodology here.