California State University-Los Angeles

California State University-Los Angeles is located in Los Angeles, California. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.

From Wikipedia: California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the California State University system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor’s degree programs, 122 master’s degree programs, and 4 doctoral degrees: the Doctor of Philosophy in special education (in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles), Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership, Doctor of Nursing Practice, and Doctor of Audiology. It also offers 22 teaching credentials. Cal State LA had a student body of 26,342 as of Fall 2023, which includes 22,566 undergraduates, primarily from the greater Los Angeles area, and 3,776 graduate students. It is organized into 9 colleges that house a total of 4 schools and approximately 50 academic departments, divisions, and interdisciplinary programs. The university’s forensic science program is one of the oldest in the nation. The Early Entrance Program in the Honors College for gifted students as young as 12 is the only one of its kind in the United States in promoting a direct transitional scheme from middle and high school to college without intermediary remedial education. Cal State LA is a Hispanic-serving institution and is eligible to be designated as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander serving institution (AANAPISI).

The 175-acre (71 ha) hilltop campus core is home to the nation’s first Charter College of Education, the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, the Hydrogen Research and Fueling Facility, and the Luckman Fine Arts Complex. It is also home to two high schools: the Marc and Eva Stern Math and Science School and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA), the only arts high school in Los Angeles that allows students from any district within Los Angeles County to attend.

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Notes

These are items that bear looking into more closely.

  • This institution’s six year bachelors graduation rate is 51.4%, so approximately 1/2 of undergrads who enroll do not earn a bachelors degree from here.

Overview of institution

This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.

  • Institution kind: Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs

  • Undergrad program: Balanced arts & sciences/professions, high graduate coexistence

  • Graduate program: Research Doctoral: Single program-Education

  • Enrollment profile: High undergraduate (see more details below)

  • Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $5,801 . This is 30% the average cost of Harvard.

  • Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.

  • Size and setting: Four-year, large, primarily nonresidential

  • In state percentage: 99% of first year students come from California

  • In US percentage: 99% of first year students come from the US

  • Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 51.4% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)

  • Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 17%

  • Percent of students seeking a Bachelors who transfer out of this institution: 2.5%

  • Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 34.5 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]

  • Student to faculty ratio: 26.1 (undergrads to all faculty)

  • Degrees offered: Bachelor’s degree, Postbaccalaureate certificate, Master’s degree, Post master’s certificate, Doctor’s degree: research scholarship, Doctor’s degree: professional practice

  • Schedule: Semester

  • Institution provides on campus housing: Yes

  • Dorm capacity: There are enough dorm beds for 2483 students

  • Freshmen required to live on campus: No

  • Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes

  • Disabilities: 5.10 percent of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.

Map

Comparisons

The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.

Enrollment

General

Teaching

Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.

Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.

Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.

Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.

Geography

This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated. The goal is to neutrally provide information: for example, some individuals want stringent gun control in an area, some want the opposite: the categories are meant to be descriptive.

Financial Aid

Graduation

Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).

Library

Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.

Diversity

The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.

Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).

These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.

Overall diversity

Freshman profile

Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.

Freshman geography

Test scores

SAT scores

ACT scores

Majors

This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.

Bachelors

Masters

Doctorate

Certificate

Associates