Ranked #24 in popularity, social work is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 14 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,448 bachelor's degrees in social work to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Social Work School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work 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
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on social work students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of social work students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 easy is it for social work 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 social work related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for social work 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 Social Work 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 - Berkeley is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work degree program at University of California - Berkeley get $6,033 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work has to check out San Diego State University. Located in the city of San Diego, SDSU is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduation, social work bachelor's recipients generally earn around $36,916 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat California State University - Sacramento if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. Sac State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Sacramento.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the social work program state that they receive average early career income of $37,290.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work has to check out California State University - Los Angeles. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, Cal State LA is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the social work program make an average of $37,477 in the first couple years of their career.
Located in the large city of Long Beach, CSULB is a public university with a very large student population.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from California State University - Long Beach receive $4,052 more than the standard social work graduate.
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 social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
