2025 Best General Engineering Schools in California
8Colleges in California
1,360Engineering Degrees Awarded
$77,930Avg Early-Career Salary
A degree in general engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #79 out of 395 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.
College Factual looked at 8 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Engineering Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,360 degrees in general engineering annually.
Your choice of general engineering school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall General Engineering School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
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 Engineering Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
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.
Best Schools for General Engineering in California
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the engineering degree levels they offer.
It's hard to beat University of California - Los Angeles if you wish to pursue a degree in general engineering. UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the city of Los Angeles. A Best Colleges rank of #28 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UCLA is a great university overall.
There were roughly 72 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent data year. Degree recipients from the general engineering major at University of California - Los Angeles make $57,443 more than the average college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat Harvey Mudd College if you want to pursue a degree in general engineering. Located in the suburb of Claremont, Harvey Mudd College is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly small student population. A Best Colleges rank of #36 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Harvey Mudd College is a great college overall.
There were roughly 51 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at Harvey Mudd College in the most recent data year. Degree recipients from the general engineering major at Harvey Mudd College make $14,561 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Santa Clara University is a good choice for students pursuing a degree in general engineering. SCU is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Santa Clara. A Best Colleges rank of #53 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means SCU is a great university overall.
There were roughly 4 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at SCU in the most recent year we have data available.
It is difficult to beat University of California - Riverside if you want to pursue a degree in general engineering. UCR is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Riverside. A Best Colleges rank of #219 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UCR is a great university overall.
There were roughly 46 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at UCR in the most recent year we have data available. Those general engineering students who get their degree from University of California - Riverside make $24,434 more than the standard engineering student.
Located in the city of Fresno, Fresno State is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 81st out of 161 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 17 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at Fresno State in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of San Francisco, SFSU is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 30th out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 28 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at SFSU in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of San Diego, USD is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 35th out of 161 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 18 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at USD in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Stockton, Pacific is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 43rd out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 32 general engineering students who graduated with this degree at Pacific in the most recent data year. General Engineering degree recipients from University of the Pacific receive an earnings boost of approximately $12,673 above the average income of general 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).
Credit for the banner image above goes to Rémi Kaupp.
Your choice of general engineering school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall General Engineering School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
