a bachelor's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #76 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 10 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 899 bachelor's degrees in aerospace & aeronautical engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of aerospace & aeronautical engineering for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. 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
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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on aerospace & aeronautical engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of aerospace & aeronautical engineering 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 aerospace & aeronautical engineering 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 aerospace & aeronautical engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for aerospace & aeronautical engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Schools
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 Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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It's hard to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from University of Southern California receive an earnings boost of approximately $5,737 over the average earnings of aerospace & aeronautical engineering graduates.
It is difficult to beat California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. Located in the small suburb of San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the aerospace & aeronautical engineering major at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo get $12,266 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
University of California - San Diego is a great choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. UCSD is a fairly large public university located in the city of La Jolla.
Soon after graduating, aerospace engineering bachelor's recipients typically make about $65,401 in the first five years of their career.
Cal Poly Pomona is a very large public university located in the suburb of Pomona.
Those aerospace & aeronautical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from California State Polytechnic University - Pomona earn $5,077 more than the standard aerospace engineering graduate.
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).
Your choice of aerospace & aeronautical engineering for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. 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:
