2025 Best Systems Engineering Schools in California
4Colleges in California
498Systems Engineering Degrees Awarded
$102,528Avg Early-Career Salary
Systems Engineering isn't the most popular major in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #160 in popularity out of 395 majors in the country. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for systems engineering students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 498 degrees in systems engineering to qualified students.
The systems engineering program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Systems Engineering rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for systems engineering schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
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 Systems Engineering Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Best Schools for Systems Engineering in California
If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the systems engineering degrees they offer, see the list below.
University of Southern California is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a degree in systems engineering. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #13 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were about 46 systems engineering students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year. Those systems engineering students who get their degree from University of Southern California earn $15,835 more than the standard systems engineering student.
University of California - San Diego is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a degree in systems engineering. Located in the large city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #49 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UCSD is a great university overall.
There were approximately 15 systems engineering students who graduated with this degree at UCSD in the most recent data year.
Any student who is interested in systems engineering needs to check out Loyola Marymount University. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 29th out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were roughly 25 systems engineering students who graduated with this degree at Loyola Marymount in the most recent year we have data available.
California State Polytechnic University - Pomona is a good decision for students pursuing a degree in systems engineering. Located in the large suburb of Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 60th out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were about 15 systems engineering students who graduated with this degree at Cal Poly Pomona in the most recent data year.
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 luis gomes.
The systems engineering program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Systems Engineering rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for systems engineering schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
