Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

California

138 colleges on the site: 33 public, 83 private nonprofit, 22 for-profit. Their undergraduates grew 6% in total since fall 2014, to 811,597 today (92 of 138 California colleges in the panel).

Explore California's colleges

How California's colleges changed

The median California college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

+4%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+30%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+10.0 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-9%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

33 colleges
Undergrads
+12%
Applicants
+31%
Acceptance rate
+22.1 pts
Average cost
-9%

Private nonprofit

51 colleges
Undergrads
0%
Applicants
+28%
Acceptance rate
+5.7 pts
Average cost
-8%

Where California's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. California (in-state)88%
  2. WA2%
  3. TX1%
  4. CO1%
  5. NY1%
  6. OR1%
  7. IL1%
  8. HI1%

Public:

1% → 1% (33 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

22% → 21% (83 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
15,081
Outflow
35,468
Net
-20,387

California's colleges enroll 0.4 first-years from other states for every California resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. San Diego State University10%
  2. University of Southern California9%
  3. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo6%
  4. University of California-Los Angeles5%
  5. Stanford University5%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in California

The same as the national lists, restricted to California's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +24.9% (64 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Mount Saint Mary's University+125.9%2,161 → 4,882
  2. 2California Institute of Technology+112.4%6,525 → 13,856
  3. 3Concordia University-Irvine+98.8%2,220 → 4,413
  4. 4University of California-Merced+96.3%16,268 → 31,928
  5. 5Loyola Marymount University+90.6%12,117 → 23,089
  6. 6California Baptist University+90.3%4,198 → 7,990
  7. 7University of California-Irvine+84.5%66,515 → 122,699
  8. 8University of California-San Diego+83.1%73,448 → 134,450
  9. 9University of California-Santa Cruz+76.1%40,727 → 71,722
  10. 10California State University-Bakersfield+72.7%7,662 → 13,229

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +3.5% (69 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of California-Merced+42.3%5,884 → 8,372
  2. 2University of California-San Diego+40.9%24,801 → 34,948
  3. 3The Master's University and Seminary+37.2%1,182 → 1,622
  4. 4California State University-San Marcos+29.3%11,506 → 14,877
  5. 5San Diego State University+27.2%27,824 → 35,377
  6. 6California Baptist University+27.1%6,435 → 8,179
  7. 7Point Loma Nazarene University+24.5%2,560 → 3,188
  8. 8University of California-Irvine+23.4%24,474 → 30,197
  9. 9University of California-Berkeley+21.9%27,126 → 33,068
  10. 10Chapman University+20.4%6,211 → 7,478

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −9.4% (68 colleges ranked)

  1. 1California State University-Channel Islands−38.2%$25,792 → $15,943
  2. 2Azusa Pacific University−36.6%$43,395 → $27,509
  3. 3University of La Verne−32.9%$38,665 → $25,931
  4. 4Westmont College−29.0%$45,341 → $32,194
  5. 5California State University-Northridge−28.2%$19,797 → $14,207
  6. 6University of the Pacific−26.8%$49,624 → $36,312
  7. 7California State University-Stanislaus−26.7%$19,975 → $14,645
  8. 8Saint Mary's College of California−25.5%$47,820 → $35,628
  9. 9California Baptist University−23.4%$38,404 → $29,432
  10. 10University of Redlands−22.9%$43,251 → $33,341

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

California's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 92 of 138 California colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)