a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #71 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for industrial engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 277 bachelor's degrees in industrial engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Industrial Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The ie bachelor'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. 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 industrial engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of industrial 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 industrial 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 industrial engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for industrial engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Industrial Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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It is hard to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Those industrial engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California make $5,110 more than the typical ie student.
California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo is a wonderful choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. 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 industrial engineering degree program at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo make $4,529 above the average college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering has to take a look at California State Polytechnic University - Pomona. Cal Poly Pomona is a very large public university located in the large suburb of Pomona.
After graduation, ie bachelor's recipients usually earn around $75,110 in their early careers.
University of San Diego is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. USD is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of San Diego.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the ie program state that they receive average early career income of $80,644.
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.
The ie bachelor'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
