If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in human development & family studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #39 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 13 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Human Development & Family Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,627 bachelor's degrees in human development & family studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Human Development & Family Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of human development & family studies for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality human development 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 human development & family studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other human development & family studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for human development & family studies 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 Human Development & Family Studies 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 - San Diego is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. UCSD is a very large public university located in the large city of La Jolla.
After graduation, human development bachelor's recipients generally earn an average of $33,489 in their early careers.
California State University - East Bay is a good choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. Located in the large suburb of Hayward, Cal State East Bay is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies degree program at California State University - East Bay get $8,466 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
California State University - Long Beach is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. CSULB is a very large public university located in the large city of Long Beach.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the human development program state that they receive average early career earnings of $30,205.
It's hard to beat California State University - San Marcos if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. CSUSM is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of San Marcos.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the human development program earn about $31,184 in the first couple years of working.
UAGC is a fairly large private for-profit university located in the city of San Diego.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies program at The University of Arizona Global Campus make $4,215 above the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Pasadena, Pacific Oaks College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies major at Pacific Oaks College earn $6,348 above the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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 human development & family studies for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality human development program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
