Public Policy is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #121 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 305 bachelor's degrees in public policy during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The public policy bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public policy program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public policy students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other public policy students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt public policy 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 public policy related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public policy students working on their bachelor's degree.
The public policy school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in California.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Featured Public Policy Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
Prepare yourself to make the decisions that best serve a community, its constituents and its economic growth with this specialized business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
University of Southern California is a great decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in public policy. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.
Public Policy bachelor's degree recipients from University of Southern California get an earnings boost of approximately $9,017 above the average earnings of public policy majors.
University of California - Riverside is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the city of Riverside, UCR is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the public policy program make an average of $39,867 for their early career.
University of Redlands is a great choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the small city of Redlands, University of Redlands is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the public policy program report average early career income of $37,888.
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).
The public policy bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public policy program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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