2025 Best International Relations & National Security Bachelor's Degree Schools in California
If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in
international relations & national security, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #58 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 13 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for international relations & national security students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 736 bachelor's degrees in international relations & national security during the 2022-2023 academic year.
What's on this page: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great International Relations & National Security School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of international relations & national security for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
- Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to international relations & national security students as compared to other majors.
- Major Demand - The number of international relations & national security 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 much debt international relations & national security students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
- Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized international relations & national security related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for international relations & national security students working on their bachelor's degree.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best International Relations & National Security Bachelor's Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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.
Located in the city of San Francisco, SFSU is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduating, international relations bachelor's recipients usually make around $31,254 in their early careers.
More information about a bachelor’s in international relations & national security from San Francisco State University
Located in the large city of Los Angeles, Oxy is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the international relations program report average early career income of $35,231.
More information about a bachelor’s in international relations & national security from Occidental College
UCR is a very large public university located in the city of Riverside.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the international relations program earn an average of $27,021 in the first couple years of working.
More information about a bachelor’s in international relations & national security from University of California - Riverside
Located in the large city of San Diego, USD is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
International Relations & National Security bachelor's degree recipients from University of San Diego get an earnings boost of about $7,505 over the typical earnings of international relations & national security graduates.
More information about a bachelor’s in international relations & national security from University of San Diego
Located in the city of San Francisco, USFCA is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Soon after graduation, international relations bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $36,669 in their early careers.
More information about a bachelor’s in international relations & national security from University of San Francisco
