If you pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #16 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 59 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for computer science students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 11,593 bachelor's degrees in computer science to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Computer Science School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of computer science for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality compsci program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to computer science students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of computer science students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt computer science students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for computer science students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Computer Science Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Computer Science in the Far Western US Region
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for computer science students seeking a a bachelor's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
11 Top Far Western US Region Schools for a Bachelor's in CompSci
It's difficult to beat University of California - Berkeley if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Computer Science bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley receive an earnings boost of around $70,962 over the average income of computer science majors.
University of Washington - Seattle Campus is a good decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in computer science. Located in the large city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Computer Science bachelor's degree recipients from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive an earnings boost of around $49,983 above the average earnings of computer science majors.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in computer science needs to take a look at Stanford University. Stanford is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford.
Those computer science students who get their bachelor's degree from Stanford University earn $59,709 more than the standard compsci student.
It is hard to beat University of Southern California if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.
Those computer science students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California receive $58,380 more than the average compsci grad.
UCSD is a very large public university located in the city of La Jolla.
Computer Science bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - San Diego earn a boost of approximately $33,102 above the average income of computer science graduates.
Located in the small suburb of San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the computer science major at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo earn $32,237 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
UC Irvine is a very large public university located in the large city of Irvine.
Computer Science bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Irvine earn a boost of around $3,257 above the typical income of computer science majors.
Located in the medium-sized suburb of Santa Barbara, UCSB is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Computer Science bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Santa Barbara earn a boost of around $28,872 above the typical income of computer science graduates.
Oregon State is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Corvallis.
Bachelor's recipients from the computer science major at Oregon State University get $6,472 more than the standard college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Computer Science Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region award.
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).