California State University-Northridge
California State University-Northridge is located in Northridge, California. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.
From Wikipedia: California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge), is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. With a total enrollment of 36,368 students (as of Fall 2023), it has the second largest undergraduate population as well as the third largest total student body in the California State University system, making it one of the largest comprehensive universities in the United States in terms of enrollment size. The size of CSUN also has a major impact on the California economy, with an estimated $1.9 billion in economic output generated by CSUN on a yearly basis. As of Fall 2021, the university had 2,187 faculty, of which 794 (or about 36%) were tenured or on the tenure track. California State University, Northridge, was founded first as the Valley satellite campus of California State University, Los Angeles. It then became an independent college in 1958 as San Fernando Valley State College, with major campus master planning and construction. In 1972, the university adopted its current name of California State University, Northridge. The 1994 Northridge earthquake caused $400 million (equivalent to $822 million in 2023) in damage to the campus, the heaviest damage ever sustained by an American college campus. The university offers 134 different bachelor’s degree and master’s degree programs in 70 fields, as well as 4 doctoral degrees (2 Doctor of Education programs, Doctor of Audiology, and Doctor of Physical Therapy) and 24 teaching credentials. It is classified among “Master’s Colleges & Universities: Larger Programs”. CSUN is home to the National Center on Deafness and the university hosts the annual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities, more commonly known as the CSUN Conference. Cal State Northridge is a Hispanic-serving institution.
Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s six year bachelors graduation rate is 56%, so approximately 2/5 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: $8,936 . This is 50% 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: 96% of first year students come from California
In US percentage: 98% of first year students come from the US
Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 56% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)
Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 22.9%
Percent of students seeking a Bachelors who transfer out of this institution: 6%
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 35.6 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 28.6 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Bachelor’s degree, Postbaccalaureate certificate, Master’s degree, 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 3416 students
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 5.50 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. In fields where there is a common view that higher (or lower) values are better, the best values are in blue, the worst values are in red. If there isn’t a sense of a particular value being better, values are shown in varying shades of green. 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.
- California State University-Northridge lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: CUNY Bernard M Baruch College, California State University-Fullerton, California State University-Sacramento, California State University-Los Angeles, California State University-San Bernardino, Eastern Michigan University
- California State University-Northridge compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: California State University-Long Beach, CUNY Hunter College, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, San Jose State University, Towson University, University of Central Oklahoma, Texas State University, CUNY Brooklyn College, The University of Texas at San Antonio, CUNY Queens College, Boise State University, Montclair State University, University of Alaska Anchorage, Missouri State University-Springfield, California State University-Fresno, San Francisco State University, Saint Cloud State University
- These institutions compare themselves to California State University-Northridge, but not vice versa: Utah Valley University, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, DeVry University-California, Metropolitan State University of Denver, California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt, DeVry University-Nevada, University of Phoenix-Hawaii, Claremont Graduate University
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.
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.