Newswise — All 23 CSU campuses are among the top universities in the country in helping low-income students find financial success, according to a recent ranking.
The “Social Mobility Index” (SMI) developed by PayScale and CollegeNET measures the extent to which a college or university educates more economically-disadvantaged students at lower tuition, so they can graduate and obtain good paying jobs.
The index looked at five criteria when ranking U.S. colleges and universities: tuition cost, the percentage of the student body from low-income households, graduation rates, salaries of graduates, and the size of a school’s endowment. Data was collected through third-party sources such as Payscale, Inc., and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
The stated goal of the SMI is to help redirect the attribution of prestige in higher education toward colleges that are solving the major problems of our time.
All CSU campuses ranked in the top quartile of the 1,363 schools listed – with five campuses ranking in overall the top ten:
• Fresno (#3)
• San José (#4)
• Long Beach (#5)
• Pomona (#6)
• Chico (#8)
• Los Angeles (#11)
• Northridge (#13)
• San Francisco (#17)
• Channel Islands (#18)
• Stanislaus (#19)
• East Bay (#21)
• San Bernardino (#25)
• Fullerton (#29)
• Cal Maritime (#33)
• Sacramento (#34)
• Monterey Bay (#51)
• Bakersfield (#52)
• San Marcos (#54)
• Dominguez Hills (#58)
• Sonoma (#62)
• San Diego (#76)
• Humboldt (#106)
• San Luis Obispo (#210)
CSU campuses are frequently recognized as engines of social mobility due to their success in educating diverse students, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college.
Washington Monthly also recently ranked all 23 CSU campuses among the nation’s best universities when it comes to serving the public good and providing students with opportunities to increase social mobility. In that ranking, ten campuses were included in the top 25 among master’s institutions and Cal Maritime ranked fifth nationally among bachelor’s universities.
Cal State L.A. and Cal Poly Pomona were recently included in the Equality of Opportunity Project’s list of top 10 colleges that channel students from low- or middle-income families to the top 20 percent of American wage earners.
To discover how the CSU is closing achievement gaps and producing the graduates needed to power California, please visit the CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025 website.
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