Best Research Universities in California 2023

Best Research Universities in California 2023

By James Barham

Published: Mar 11, 2021
Updated: Mar 13, 2023

Interested in attending a STEM school in California? Our ranking of top research universities for bachelor’s degrees displays schools that will best prepare you for STEM careers.

10 Best Research Universities in California 2022

University of California, Berkeley

87%

Stanford University

86%

University of California, Los Angeles

78%

California Institute of Technology

76%

University of Southern California

72%

University of California, San Diego

70%

University of California, Santa Barbara

65%

University of California, Irvine

64%

University of California, Davis

61%

University of California, Santa Cruz

60%

Azusa Pacific University

94%

University of Massachusetts Global

93%

University of California, Merced

87%

University of the Pacific

79%

University of La Verne

72%

University of San Francisco

71%

University of California, Riverside

65%

Biola University

61%

Chapman University

60%

University of California, Santa Cruz

59%

San Diego State University

27 to 1

University of California, Santa Cruz

25 to 1

University of California, Riverside

22 to 1

University of Massachusetts Global

22 to 1

University of California, Davis

20 to 1

University of California, Berkeley

19 to 1

University of California, Merced

19 to 1

University of California, San Diego

19 to 1

University of California, Los Angeles

18 to 1

University of California, Irvine

18 to 1

University of Southern California

$61,503

Pepperdine University

$59,702

California Institute of Technology

$58,680

Chapman University

$58,634

Stanford University

$56,169

Santa Clara University

$55,860

Loyola Marymount University

$53,526

University of San Francisco

$53,472

University of San Diego

$52,864

University of the Pacific

$52,352

University of Southern California

$60,446

California Institute of Technology

$56,364

Stanford University

$54,315

University of the Pacific

$50,128

Chapman University

$37,538

Pepperdine University

$37,300

University of San Diego

$27,936

University of San Francisco

$27,180

Santa Clara University

$25,170

Loyola Marymount University

$19,642

University of Massachusetts Global

17%

Northcentral University

23%

University of La Verne

29%

Azusa Pacific University

31%

University of California, Merced

36%

Biola University

40%

University of San Diego

44%

Loyola Marymount University

44%

University of the Pacific

45%

Chapman University

47%

Stanford University

4%

California Institute of Technology

4%

University of California, Los Angeles

11%

University of Southern California

13%

University of California, Berkeley

14%

University of California, Santa Barbara

29%

University of California, Irvine

29%

University of California, San Diego

34%

San Diego State University

38%

Loyola Marymount University

46%

California Institute of Technology

3 to 1

Northcentral University

3 to 1

Stanford University

4 to 1

University of Southern California

9 to 1

Azusa Pacific University

10 to 1

Loyola Marymount University

10 to 1

Santa Clara University

11 to 1

University of San Francisco

12 to 1

Chapman University

12 to 1

Pepperdine University

13 to 1

San Diego State University

$5,742

Northcentral University

$11,064

University of California, Riverside

$11,442

University of California, Los Angeles

$11,442

University of California, Santa Cruz

$11,442

University of California, Berkeley

$11,442

University of California, Irvine

$11,442

University of California, Santa Barbara

$11,442

University of California, Davis

$11,442

University of California, Merced

$11,442

San Diego State University

$7,176

University of California, Riverside

$11,442

University of California, Los Angeles

$11,442

University of California, Santa Cruz

$11,442

University of California, Berkeley

$11,442

University of California, Irvine

$11,442

University of California, Santa Barbara

$11,442

University of California, Davis

$11,442

University of California, Merced

$11,442

University of California, San Diego

$11,442

Key Takeaways

A research university allows students to connect with experts in their chosen field. Researchers and professors are often in a good position to help students with networking so they can land internships and possibly job opportunities right after they graduate.
Attending a research university provides students access to some of the latest in research. Plus, all classes are handled by recognized researchers who can help students get ahead in their chosen fields of study.
As a student at a research university, you have an upper hand for admission into notable graduate schools or career opportunities in competitive positions.

Colleges and Universities in California

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 programs that would allow you to earn a degree from literally anywhere in California, or the world.

The state’s largest university is the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). UCLA 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. However, 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. Many of these schools offer online courses and complete online programs in these same disciplines.

Though Hollywood has given us 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, as well as community and junior colleges, to choose from, students have countless opportunities to further their education in California.

Many of these opportunities are also accessible through online courses and online colleges. A growing number of online programs in California have received accreditation from the Western Association of Schools, which means online students have a higher level of quality assurance than ever before. It’s also worth noting that students who live in California can still get an in-state discount on their associate degree or bachelor’s degree even when completing online courses or online programs.

To learn more about earning your degree in California, check out some of the state’s top programs and career paths.

What are California’s Colleges & Universities?

California’s Best Overall

Related: Differences between research universities and teaching colleges

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California As a Major Hub for Research Universities

Selecting a college could be one of the most challenging decisions you have to make in life. Should you go to a liberal arts college and focus on a general program? Or is a research university a better option? This option allows you to focus on more specific fields of study.

Why You Should Attend a Research University

A research university offers you a lot of exceptional academic and career opportunities. These schools, often supported by the National Science Foundation and similar agencies, focus on facilitating research studies conducted by graduate students, professors, and industry experts. This makes a research university suitable for undergraduate students who plan to pursue higher academics.

Here are some interesting reasons why attending a research university is good for you.

More Connections

You can make connections with well-known and distinguished industry experts. This allows students to be networked with key players in the industry. Many researchers take their students with them to conferences and introduce these students around. This is a helpful way to become established in your field and launch yourself well into your career.

Research universities have improved course selections. Research universities often receive alumni, business, and government funding. This is why most of these universities have relatively bigger facilities with multiple departments.

Those who attend research schools will find it easier to select from unique academic programs and classes that will allow them to fine-tune their preferred majors.

Research universities offering undergraduate programs often award the same benefits to their undergrad students. This allows these students to learn from experts and take advantage of improved educational tools.

While all schools generally differ in the way they are structured, a research university is an ultimate option for highly passionate enrollees. Since these schools have ample resources, research universities can adjust to specialized academic endeavors such as double majors.

High-level Credentials

Research universities have to live up to their role as producers of the latest innovations and technologies, which is why these schools always have widespread prestige. Thus, these schools are usually featured in the news for their projects. Major industry players even partner with research universities to help them with their academic missions.

You have an advantage in admission to professional and graduate schools. Many professional and graduate schools have this belief that students coming from research universities are better trained than those coming from smaller schools. Graduate schools put more faith in letters of recommendation coming from well-known professors at research universities.

More Choices for Majors

Research universities have more fine-grained majors. Research universities have a larger faculty, which means they have a wider range of disciplines offered. This gives students more choices of majors. For instance, the University of California-Berkeley has more than 300 majors and programs.

In a single field, you can find different fine-tuned variations. UC Berkeley’s biological sciences department gives you the option to choose either Biochemistry, Integrative Biology, Genetics, Neurobiology, Immunology, or Cell Biology.

There are also more obscure majors like Epidemiology, Demography, Media Studies, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual and Transgender Studies, Folklore, and Native American Studies. In small colleges and universities, majors usually range from 25 to 30 only. Needless to say, choices in research universities are good.

Internships

You can secure internships and work with industry experts. It’s been proven that some of the best experiences for college students happen not inside the classroom, but in the interaction they experience with professors outside the classroom, especially in shared research activities.

Through internships and collaborative projects, students will have the chance to become researchers. Sometimes, they can even coauthor published papers or co-present at conferences. Either way, these experiences are a major feather in a students’s cap.

How do we determine California's best colleges and universities?

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 research university is a great option for students interested in obtaining STEM degrees. Research universities invest heavily in research, which consequently provides meaningful and extensive opportunities for its students and faculty to participate in research. We’ve identified 29 research universities in California. To be included in our ranking, schools must be a fully accredited universities and must must offer doctoral degrees across the range of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).

Best Research Universities in California 2022

Find the Best Research Universities in California for Your Area of Interest

Frequently Asked Questions About Research Universities, Liberal Arts Colleges, Online Colleges

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. Research universities 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.

Consider whether you are self motivated enough to be a face in the crowd for some classes and largely unknown on campus at a large university. Of course you can find clubs and friends at a large university, but often liberal arts colleges have a more personal quality to them. If you want the community feel, a research university may not fit you well.
Are you interested in STEM fields? Research universities have that name for a reason – real research is happening there. This can create an exciting atmosphere for students interested in STEM. Attending a research university can give you a better chance of getting into better programs for graduate degrees, although a lot of that depends on your performance.

Learn more about research universities by reading about the best research universities in the US.

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.

Do you want your professors to know you? Liberal arts colleges strive to cultivate campus cultures that encourage tight bonds between professors and students. Professors at these schools will typically conduct original research. Yet the best of these schools offer their faculty reduced teaching loads so that they can both be productive researchers and still have plenty of time for students (both in and outside the classroom).
Do you want to feel like you know everybody? One of the most enticing features of a liberal arts college is that in very little time, you can feel like you know who’s who, which can create strong friendships, but also more pleasurable walks across campus. While your sports teams may never be on ESPN, it’s more likely that you’ll know the athletes as your peers. Beyond student and faculty relationships, it’s not unusual for the school president and other administrators to learn who you are. When faced with problems with your student account or the need to switch classes, this can be comforting during a stressful moment.

Learn more about liberal arts colleges by reading about the best liberal arts colleges in the US.

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.

Are you a self-driven student? Perhaps the hardest aspect of obtaining an online degree is whether you will be disciplined enough to manage your time and course demands. Many online students report that online college made them more disciplined in all areas of their lives, but the flexible, self-paced learning that makes online colleges attractive can often be the same qualities that make it difficult. If you tend to be a procrastinator, you need to be honest with yourself. You can change your habits and propensities, or you can throw money down the drain.
Do you need the flexibility of an online degree program? Most online students study online because of time demands balancing work and life, or becuase the online colleges afford them the chance to attend a better school without moving. If you are serious about earning your degree for career advancement, online colleges make it possible. The most flexible options among online degrees are those that are aynchronous, meaning you don’t have scheduled times to meet with your class online. However, many students seek synchronous online degree programs so that they have some structure – set meeting times, scheduled exams, etc.
The good news is that attending an online college doesn’t mean you will miss out on getting to know your professors and classmates. In fact, many online students who have experienced both online and on-campus courses report having easier access to their professors. Since most communication with your professor is expected to be in text – via email or your class learning management system – it makes asking your questions easier. The same students also report that they got to better know the thoughts of their classmates. While in-person course conversations can be dominated by a few extroverts, online courses that require online discussions make it so that you see all of your classmates’ thoughts and questions.

If you’re 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.

2021 Ranking Archive

Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utilized 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.

Check out our directory of research universities throughout the U.S. for a look at the top research institutions in every state.