If you pursue a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #35 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 21 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for civil engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 2,049 bachelor's degrees in civil engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Civil Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of civil 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. 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 much a school focuses on civil engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of civil 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 easy is it for civil engineering to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized civil engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for civil engineering 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 Civil Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in California 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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University of California - Davis is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. Located in the suburb of Davis, UC Davis is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the civil eng program earn about $75,165 for their early career.
University of Southern California is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California make $10,536 more than the average civil eng graduate.
It is difficult to beat University of California - Berkeley if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. UC Berkeley is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Civil Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley earn a boost of about $3,416 over the average income of civil engineering graduates.
University of California - Los Angeles is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the civil eng program report average early career income of $75,510.
Located in the small suburb of San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo make $5,947 more than the standard civil eng student.
Located in the midsize city of Santa Clara, SCU is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Civil Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Santa Clara University receive an earnings boost of approximately $10,157 over the typical income of civil engineering 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).
Your choice of civil 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
