2026 Compare Cities Education:
Long Beach, CA vs Santa Barbara, CA

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Highlights
- Santa Barbara spends 4.2% less per student than Long Beach.
- The Student Teacher Ratio is 3.9% lower in Santa Barbara than in Long Beach. (lower means fewer students in each classroom).
- Santa Barbara had 9.1% more residents who had graduated High School compared to Long Beach
 Long Beach, CASanta Barbara, CAUnited States
 Expend. per Student  Unlock$16,705$15,905
 Educ. Expend. per Student$14,374  Unlock$13,142
 Instr. Expend. per Student  Unlock$7,862$7,999
 Pupil/Teacher Ratio21.86  Unlock16.23
 Students per Librarian  Unlock123874573
 Students per Counselor380  Unlock530
 Grade School Educ.  Unlock7.2%4.8%
 Some High School Educ.7.6%  Unlock6.3%
 High School Educ.  Unlock88.0%88.9%
 Some College Educ.22.8%  Unlock20.0%
 2 yr College Grad.  Unlock7.2%8.7%
 4 yr College Grad.32.8%  Unlock33.7%
 Masters Grad.  Unlock12.6%9.3%
 Professional Degree2.0%  Unlock2.2%
 Doctorate Degree  Unlock3.5%1.5%
Reviews for Long Beach    45 Reviews

Local born and bred. This place is going down the drain. Crime is up, housing is up, yuppies finding nothing wrong with it since they want to validate spending 3k on a 2  More

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Angelique · 
Over 6 years ago

I love Long Beach. I especially shoreline village and the aquarium of the pacific. The only big problem here (for me) is crime. Otherwise, nice  More

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Over 8 years ago

The cost of living is extremely high and there are way too many apartments or multi unit homes which have no parking. But with everyone living on top of each other it  More

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Reviews for Santa Barbara    51 Reviews

I moved to Santa Barbara around 23 years ago to study at Brooks, which like most of the Santa Barbara that I knew—has been destroyed. Homelessness, drugs, gangs, high  More

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Over 5 years ago

I fell in love with Santa Barbara about thirty years ago and finally moved here a few years ago. Because of the price of homes, it is an expensive place to live. The  More

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If you like high crime, paying a $4,500 a month mortgage and crazy high taxes, this is the place for you. It’s too bad because it wasn’t always like this. When I moved  More

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