Liberal arts colleges are a great option for students seeking a well-rounded education in an intimate campus setting. The best liberal arts colleges in California offer a diverse selection of degree programs with opportunities for a highly individualized educational experience.
California’s higher education institutes span across the entire state, allowing students to study by the beach, in the forest, in small towns, and in large cities. There are over 30 high quality online degrees programs that would literally allow you to study from anywhere in California, or the world. The largest university, the University of California, Los Angeles, serves nearly 44,000 students and offers a tuition rate around $13,000. This isn’t the only school with a large student body though. California is home to 23 colleges and universities with student populations of over 20,000 students.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
However, more than half of the state’s schools serve smaller student populations, offering plenty of options for students who crave a more intimate campus experience. Additionally, California boasts 50 religiously affiliated schools. Many of these schools have high graduation rates, though tuition costs can range greatly, from $8,000 at Bethesda University up to $54,000 at Pepperdine University.
Additionally, many of California’s colleges and universities boast influential faculty and alumni, including Neil Armstrong, Jerry Lewis, and Weird Al
Yankovic. In addition to famous alumni and professors, California’s schools are also home to some of the country’s top degree programs, including nursing, business, religious studies, education, literature, and law.
Though Hollywood has given an inside look into California’s most popular landmarks and attractions, these one-of-a-kind places aren’t the only reason people flock to The Golden State. With hundreds of colleges and universities to choose from, students have countless opportunities to further their education in California.
To learn more about earning your degree in California, check out some of the state’s top programs and career paths.
Related: Differences between research universities and teaching colleges
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
A liberal arts college is a school that puts a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree. We’ve identified 84 liberal arts colleges in California. To be ranked among the 30 best liberal arts colleges in California, schools must fully accredited institutions.
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
55%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1045/20
San Francisco State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
66%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
San Jose State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
94%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
Pomona College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
18%
Graduation
93%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1530/34
Harvey Mudd College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
13%
Graduation
92%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
Claremont McKenna College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
66%
Graduation
55%
Student body
33K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/19
California State University, Northridge’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
69%
Student body
34K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/21
California State University, Fullerton’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
52%
Student body
23K
Median SAT/ACT
985/17
California State University, Los Angeles’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
42%
Graduation
73%
Student body
33K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/23
California State University, Long Beach’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
41%
Graduation
84%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/30
Occidental College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
90%
Graduation
65%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1090/21
California State University, Chico’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Student body
1K
Golden Gate University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
54%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/19
California State University, Sacramento’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
38%
Graduation
83%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1340/29
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
71%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
University of Redlands’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
67%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/23
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
47%
Student body
14K
California State University, East Bay’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
65%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1147/24
Mills College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
83%
Student body
1K
Pitzer College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
35%
Graduation
88%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1411/31
Scripps College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
60%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1070/20
Sonoma State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$1K
Graduation
31%
Student body
19K
Santa Monica College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
63%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1129/23
Whittier College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
47%
Student body
23K
National University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
73%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1150/25
Saint Mary's College of California’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
48%
Student body
15K
California State University, Dominguez Hills’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
59%
Student body
18K
Median SAT/ACT
1000/17
California State University, San Bernardino’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
74%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/22
Dominican University of California’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
49%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/21
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$2K
Graduation
59%
Student body
9K
Foothill College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
Back to TopMany of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.