2025 Best Physical Science Schools in California

If you plan on majoring in physical science, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #179 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.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for physical science students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 289 degrees in physical science annually.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Degree-Level Rankings

• Best Overall Physical Science Schools List

Pick Your Physical Science Degree Level

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 Physical Science 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.

If you want to learn more about how we derive our rankings, see College Factual's Methodology.

Best Schools for Physical Science 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 physical sciences degree levels they offer.

Top California Schools in Physical Sciences

1

University of California - Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

44.0% Growth in Graduates

It's difficult to beat University of California - Santa Cruz if you wish to pursue a degree in physical science. UC Santa Cruz is a large public university located in the city of Santa Cruz.More information about a degree in physical science from University of California - Santa Cruz

2

California State University - Fresno
Fresno, CA

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

30.8% Growth in Graduates

It is difficult to beat California State University - Fresno if you want to pursue a degree in physical science. Fresno State is a very large public university located in the city of Fresno.More information about a degree in physical science from California State University - Fresno

Best Physical Science Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Physical Science Colleges in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Washington	831	740
Oregon	587	1
Nevada	354	106
Hawaii	267	0

View All Rankings >

Physical Science Related Rankings by Major

Physical Science is one of 0 different types of General Physical Sciences programs to choose from.

Notes and References

• 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).

More about our data sources and methodologies.