In Good Company: CSU Campuses Rank Among Nation’s Best

California State University campuses continue to provide quality, affordable and accessible education to Californians, and two recent national rankings further validate this. Eighteen CSU campuses were named to Forbes’ list of America’s Top Colleges and 21 campuses were ranked in the top half of MONEY’s Best Colleges in America this August. In addition, 13 CSU campuses were ranked in MONEY’S list of the nation’s Most Transformative Colleges for their ability to help students from economically underserved communities beat the odds. 

MONEY’s Best Colleges list ranked 744 institutions that successfully combined quality and affordability, and Forbes’ list ranked 650 public and private not-for-profit schools based on alumni salary, student satisfaction, debt upon graduation, academic success and graduation rates. 

Both recognitions are a testament to progress made by the CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025, which reported graduation rates at all-time highs in 2018, including a 32 percent increase in four-year graduation rates for first-time freshman and a 14 percent decrease in the equity gap between students from underrepresented communities and their peers (since the initiaitve launched in 2016). 

Affordability and quality have long been a part of CSU’s mission. In fact, the CSU is the nation’s largest and most affordable public four-year university system, opening the door to educational opportunities for nearly half a million students and awarding more than 125,000 degrees each year. The 2019-20 state budget provided additional funding for Graduation Initiative 2025 as well as growing enrollment, so the CSU is poised to increase capacity and improve quality.

CSU Campuses in Forbes’ 2019 Top Colleges 
San Luis Obispo* (115)
San Diego (181)
Long Beach (272)
Pomona (273)
San José (295)
Fullerton (300)
Maritime Academy (309)
Chico (335)
Fresno (417)
San Francisco (426)
Stanislaus (434)
Sonoma (457)
Sacramento (469)
Northridge (474)
East Bay (492)
Los Angeles (499)
San Bernardino (500)
Humboldt (623)

*Cal Poly San Luis Obispo also ranks 24 out of the top 25 colleges in the west for 2019—a subset of the Forbes national ranking. Forbes notes that Cal Poly prepares its ​graduates to work at companies such as Apple, Amazon and Oracle.

CSU Campuses in MONEY’s 2019 Best Colleges
Long Beach (13)
Fullerton (22)
Northridge (29)
Los Angeles (36)
Pomona (41)
Fresno (51)
Chico (56)
Monterey Bay (63)
Stanislaus (68)
San Bernardino (70)
San Diego (74)
San Luis Obispo (75)
Channel Islands (93)
Dominguez Hills (96)
San José (104)
Maritime Academy (112)
San Francisco (144)
Sacramento (150)
East Bay (181)
San Marcos (243)
Sonoma (283)

CSU Campuses in MONEY’s Most Transformative Colleges 
Stanislaus (5)
Northridge (7)
San José (8)
Channel Islands (9)
Fresno (11)
Long Beach (12)
Pomona (14)
Monterey Bay (16)
Fullerton (17)
San Bernardino (19)
Chico (20)
San Francisco (27)
San Marcos (34)

CSU campuses are frequently recognized for academic excellence and contributions to the public good. The Forbes​ and MONEY rankings represent just the latest round of national acclaim. View more of the CSU’s “best of” rankings.​

scraped from https://www.newswise.com/articles/in-good-company-csu-campuses-rank-among-nation-s-best