If you pursue a bachelor's degree in general psychology, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #3 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual reviewed 60 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of general psychology. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 15,336 bachelor's degrees in general psychology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Psychology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The psychology 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 general psychology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general psychology 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 easy is it for general psychology 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 general psychology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general psychology 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 General Psychology Bachelor's Degree Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study General Psychology in California
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for general psychology students seeking a a bachelor's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
12 Top California Schools for a Bachelor's in Psychology
University of California - Los Angeles is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in general psychology. Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduation, psychology bachelor's recipients usually make about $30,614 in their early careers.
University of California - Irvine is a great decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in general psychology. UC Irvine is a very large public university located in the city of Irvine.
After graduating, psychology bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $27,115 at the beginning of their careers.
University of Southern California is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in general psychology. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Those general psychology students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California make $3,079 more than the average psychology grad.
University of California - Santa Cruz is a good option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in general psychology. UC Santa Cruz is a large public university located in the city of Santa Cruz.
Soon after graduation, psychology bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $30,730 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the city of Santa Clara, SCU is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
General Psychology bachelor's degree recipients from Santa Clara University earn a boost of about $7,527 over the typical income of general psychology graduates.
USFCA is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of San Francisco.
Bachelor's recipients from the general psychology program at University of San Francisco get $5,674 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
Here are some additional great schools for General Psychology students in the state of California that almost earned our Best General Psychology Bachelor's Degree Schools in California award.
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).