If you plan on majoring in fashion design, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #223 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 4 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for fashion design students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 531 degrees in fashion design to qualified students.
Your choice of fashion design school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Fashion Design School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Fashion Design Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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.
The schools below may not offer all types of fashion studies degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.
FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising - Los Angeles is a great choice for students interested in a degree in fashion design. FIDM Los Angeles is a small private for-profit school located in the large city of Los Angeles.
There were roughly 166 fashion design students who graduated with this degree at FIDM Los Angeles in the most recent data year.
Every student who is interested in fashion design needs to look into Otis College of Art and Design. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, Otis College of Art and Design is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
There were about 33 fashion design students who graduated with this degree at Otis College of Art and Design in the most recent year we have data available.
It is difficult to beat California College of the Arts if you wish to pursue a degree in fashion design. California College of the Arts is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of San Francisco.
There were approximately 18 fashion design students who graduated with this degree at California College of the Arts in the most recent year we have data available.
It's hard to beat Academy of Art University if you want to pursue a degree in fashion design. Located in the large city of San Francisco, Academy of Art University is a private for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
There were about 62 fashion design students who graduated with this degree at Academy of Art University 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).
Your choice of fashion design school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Fashion Design School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
