Cal States and some of the lower UCs might not be ranked that high nationally, but there are a bunch more private schools that are even less respected.

UC Berkeley is high rated for engineering and physics

UC San Francisco is high rated for Medicine.

Personally I think some of the UC schools can be just as good as any Harvard or Yale, especially for business, law, medicine, science and filmmaking.

If you are a California resident they are considerably less expensive, about one third the cost of a Purdue or Duke.

The education is not third rate, it’s up there. Most UC campuses do make the top 20 or 25 University lists.

Private universities, IMHO, are crap. They cost too much and it is the exact same education as the CSU/UC system.

http://www.pre-med.info