Top Ranked Universities in California

How do we rank these schools? Learn more about our college ranking system.
Note that some schools do not have enough data to be ranked, and these schools will not appear in our lists. To find information about a school not listed below, try our site search at the bottom of this page.

Top Ranked Universities in California - Highest Enrollment

Rank in California			Highest Enrollment
2020	2015	School Name	2020	2015
1	1	University of Southern California	47,310	41,368 (↑14.4%)
2	2	University of California-Los Angeles	44,537	40,795 (↑9.2%)
3 ↑	6	University of California-Berkeley	42,501	36,198 (↑17.4%)
4 ↓	3	California State University-Fullerton	40,280	38,325 (↑5.1%)
5 ↓	4	California State University-Northridge	40,212	38,310 (↑5.0%)
6 ↑	8	University of California-Davis	38,167	33,307 (↑14.6%)
7 ↑	14	University of California-San Diego	37,887	29,517 (↑28.4%)
8 ↓	7	California State University-Long Beach	37,466	35,586 (↑5.3%)
9 ↑	15	University of California-Irvine	36,032	28,895 (↑24.7%)
10 ↓	5	East Los Angeles College	35,403	36,606 (↓3.3%)
11 ↓	10	San Jose State University	35,400	31,278 (↑13.2%)
12 ↓	9	San Diego State University	35,303	31,899 (↑10.7%)
13 ↓	1	Ashford University	34,710	58,104 (↓40.3%)
14 ↑	16	California State University-Sacramento	31,902	28,811 (↑10.7%)
15 ↓	13	American River College	31,366	29,701 (↑5.6%)
16 ↓	12	San Francisco State University	29,778	29,905 (↓0.4%)
17 ↑	18	Mt San Antonio College	29,346	28,481 (↑3.0%)
18 ↓	11	Santa Monica College	28,800	29,999 (↓4.0%)
19 ↓	17	Santa Ana College	28,425	28,598 (↓0.6%)
20 ↑	28	California State University-Los Angeles	28,036	23,258 (↑20.5%)

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