Computer Science is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #17 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 27 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of computer science. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 3,877 master's degrees in computer science during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Computer Science School for Your Master's Degree
The compsci master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on computer science students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of computer science students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt computer science students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized computer science related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for computer science students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Computer Science Master's Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in computer science needs to check out Stanford University. Located in the suburb of Stanford, Stanford is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Computer Science master's degree recipients from Stanford University receive an earnings boost of approximately $64,964 above the typical income of computer science majors.
University of Southern California is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in computer science. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, compsci master's recipients generally make around $134,544 in their early careers.
It's difficult to beat University of California - San Diego if you wish to pursue a master's degree in computer science. Located in the city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population.
Computer Science master's degree recipients from University of California - San Diego get an earnings boost of around $13,465 above the average earnings of computer science majors.
Located in the large city of Irvine, UC Irvine is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Computer Science master's degree recipients from University of California - Irvine receive an earnings boost of approximately $13,679 over the average earnings of computer science majors.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The compsci master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
