Computer Engineering is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #41 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 22 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for computer engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 2,214 bachelor's degrees in computer engineering to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Electrical Engineering (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Electrical Engineering (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Electrical Engineering (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Electrical Engineering (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Computer Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Computer Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Computer Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Computer Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Computer Science (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Computer Science (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 3
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 2 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 2
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 2 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Computer Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of computer 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
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges 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 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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to computer engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other computer engineering students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 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 computer engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for computer engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
The ce school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Computer Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in California.
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.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "engineering//ce-computer-engineering"
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in computer engineering has to look into Santa Clara University. SCU is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Santa Clara.
Bachelor's recipients from the computer engineering major at Santa Clara University get $26,965 above the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
University of California - San Diego is a wonderful option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. Located in the city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those computer engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - San Diego make $19,417 more than the typical ce graduate.
It's hard to beat University of California - Irvine if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. Located in the city of Irvine, UC Irvine is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the computer engineering program at University of California - Irvine get $2,973 above the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of San Luis Obispo.
Computer Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo get an earnings boost of around $34,721 above the average earnings of computer engineering majors.
UC Davis is a fairly large public university located in the small suburb of Davis.
Bachelor's recipients from the computer engineering major at University of California - Davis make $19,579 above the typical graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those computer engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - Santa Cruz make $3,130 more than the standard ce student.
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.
Your choice of computer 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:
