 In 2009 , RePEc , an online database of research economics articles , ranked the UCSC Economics Department sixth in the world in the field of international finance . In 2007 , High Times magazine placed UCSC as first among US universities as a " counterculture college . " In 2009 , The Princeton Review ( with Gamepro magazine ) ranked UC Santa Cruz 's Game Design major among the top 50 in the country . In 2011 , The Princeton Review and Gamepro Media ranked UC Santa Cruz 's graduate programs in Game Design as seventh in the nation . In 2012 , UCSC was ranked No. 3 in the Most Beautiful Campus list of Princeton Review . 
