College profile
California State University-Bakersfield
CA · Public · Large city · 13,950 applicants 2023
A parent's read
- The payoff holds even at full price: roughly 8× over a decade. With no aid at all — the full in-state ~$19,522/yr — a decade of median earnings (~$59,009/yr) still runs about 8× the four-year cost. This payoff doesn't depend on qualifying for anything. (Out-of-state costs more.)
- Worth asking: do students finish? Only 50% graduate within six years here — the standard federal measure. Ask what drives that: course availability, transfers out, students working long hours. Not finishing is the costliest outcome there is.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
Parent/student verdict
AccessibleAccessible for most applicants. Affordable — net price averages ~$5,652/yr among aid recipients. Major value play for in-state residents.
Best for
- In-state residents (tuition ~$8,090 — major value play)
- Students drawn to Business, Management, & Marketing or Liberal Arts, Humanities, & General Studies (the two biggest majors)
The reality
- Out-of-state tuition is 2.6× the in-state rate
Verdict is composed from this college's structured data (admit rate, SAT bands, net price with aid and at full price, Carnegie classification, scholarship grids) using transparent rule thresholds — not a chat-bot's opinion.
What are your child's odds here?
Enter their numbers once — this and every college page shows their verdict, and the UC campus cards on California school pages light up with it too. Free, no email.
Weighted is the higher GPA, with honors/AP credit in it — pick whichever your school reports. PSAT scores work in the SAT box.
Institutional snapshot
What kind of college is this?
Source: federal IPEDS Admissions 2023 for scores + admit rate; federal College Scorecard (20260606 vintage) for earnings + outcomes. SAT/ACT bands are the 25th–75th percentile of enrolled submitters.
Admitted-student GPA
Broadly accessible
CSU Bakersfield admits the large majority of CSU-eligible applicants — there is no selective GPA cutoff. The CSU eligibility floor is an a–g GPA of 2.5 (3.0 for non-residents). Cal State is test-blind, so a solid a–g GPA is what matters.
CSU first-year GPA — verified 2026-06-15 against the campus's official Common Data Set / admissions data. The GPA basis (a–g vs. weighted vs. 4.0-scale) differs from the unweighted GPA shown for private colleges.
Admit rate by major — Fall 2025
The headline admit rate hides a wide spread by program.
First-time freshman applications and admits by major, from the CSU Chancellor's Office. Campus overall: 88%.
| Major | Applicants | Admitted | Admit rate Fall 2025 |
Earlier year for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 882 | 751 | 85.1% | Fall 2021: 87.3% ↓ |
| Criminal Justice | 847 | 670 | 79.1% | Fall 2021: 81.7% ↓ |
| Electrical Engineering | 689 | 597 | 86.6% | Fall 2021: 85.9% |
| Biology | 663 | 596 | 89.9% | Fall 2021: 88.2% ↑ |
| Finance | 552 | 439 | 79.5% | Fall 2021: 82.1% ↓ |
| Kinesiology/Physical Education | 485 | 419 | 86.4% | Fall 2021: 86.8% |
| Small Business Management | 465 | 343 | 73.8% | Fall 2021: 78.7% ↓ |
| Marketing | 439 | 338 | 77.0% | Fall 2021: 75.9% ↑ |
| Engineering | 389 | 353 | 90.7% | Fall 2023: 87.1% ↑ |
| Accountancy | 383 | 313 | 81.7% | Fall 2021: 82.7% |
| Art | 369 | 289 | 78.3% | Fall 2021: 77.2% ↑ |
| Computer Engineering | 308 | 263 | 85.4% | Fall 2021: 83.1% ↑ |
| Management | 299 | 217 | 72.6% | Fall 2021: 77.1% ↓ |
| Business Administration | 293 | 232 | 79.2% | Fall 2021: 81.2% ↓ |
| Political Science/Government | 293 | 258 | 88.1% | Fall 2021: 89.1% |
| Public Health | 290 | 231 | 79.7% | Fall 2022: 84.2% ↓ |
| Agricultural Business | 287 | 226 | 78.7% | Fall 2021: 84.3% ↓ |
| Liberal Studies | 283 | 254 | 89.8% | Fall 2021: 91.1% ↓ |
| Information Systems | 257 | 195 | 75.9% | Fall 2022: 87.8% ↓ |
| Computer Science | 229 | 190 | 83.0% | Fall 2021: 82.3% |
| Biotechnology | 222 | 190 | 85.6% | Fall 2021: 91.0% ↓ |
| Biochemistry | 208 | 185 | 88.9% | Fall 2021: 90.3% ↓ |
| Communications | 206 | 162 | 78.6% | Fall 2021: 85.3% ↓ |
| Human Biological Sciences | 184 | 171 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 93.4% |
| Music | 168 | 137 | 81.5% | Fall 2021: 81.6% |
| Child Development/Early Childhood Education | 152 | 120 | 78.9% | Fall 2021: 83.9% ↓ |
| Philosophy | 151 | 127 | 84.1% | Fall 2021: 79.8% ↑ |
| Mathematics | 147 | 138 | 93.9% | Fall 2021: 88.9% ↑ |
| Sociology | 124 | 105 | 84.7% | Fall 2021: 86.2% ↓ |
| English | 115 | 104 | 90.4% | Fall 2021: 84.5% ↑ |
| Chemistry | 102 | 92 | 90.2% | Fall 2021: 87.0% ↑ |
| History | 98 | 82 | 83.7% | Fall 2021: 85.9% ↓ |
| Theatre Arts | 66 | 46 | 69.7% | Fall 2021: 75.0% ↓ |
| Health Care Management/Administration | 66 | 52 | 78.8% | Fall 2021: 86.5% ↓ |
| Human Resources/Personnel Management | 52 | 45 | 86.5% | Fall 2021: 80.9% ↑ |
| Food Science | 48 | 44 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 72.2% ↑ |
| Physics | 48 | 40 | 83.3% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↓ |
| Spanish | 37 | 32 | 86.5% | Fall 2021: 74.5% ↑ |
| Transportation and Logistics Management | 33 | 25 | 75.8% | Fall 2022: 87.1% ↓ |
| Land Resource Management | 28 | 25 | 89.3% | Fall 2021: 87.2% ↑ |
| Public Administration | 25 | 18 | 72.0% | Fall 2021: 77.8% ↓ |
| Economics | 24 | 20 | 83.3% | Fall 2021: 73.2% ↑ |
| Geology | 19 | 18 | 94.7% | Fall 2021: 80.0% ↑ |
Source: CSU Chancellor's Office ↗, applications & admissions by discipline and major (Fall 2021–2025); impaction status from the CSU impacted-programs list (2027-28 cycle). Groups smaller than 10 are suppressed by CSU. A rising admit rate usually means fewer applications, not lower standards.
Outcomes & cost
What graduates actually earn, finish, and owe.
Federal College Scorecard data. Earnings are median annual income measured years after entering. Debt is for federal-aid borrowers only (cash-pay students aren't counted).
The real cost
What California State University-Bakersfield actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by California State University-Bakersfield's own aid decision: the gap between its price and your family's finances.
Your odds + estimated cost across your whole college list, side by side.
The payoffTen years of typical graduate pay minus four years of cost — how many dollars ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten. Check both the full-price and with-aid versions to see which applies to you; median pay reflects who a college admits and what they study as much as the college itself., both ways
+$512K ahead at full price +$567K with aidSource: College Scorecard (average net price among Title IV first-time, full-time undergraduates who received aid) and each college's published cost of attendance. We don't show the federal net-price-by-income brackets: their categories were fixed in 2008 and never adjusted, and none of the averages is your family's own number — the full story. Payoff = (10-yr median earnings × 10) − (4 years of cost), in dollars — how far ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten; medians travel with the students a college admits and the majors they choose as much as with the college itself. Full price is the published cost of attendance, largely in-state for publics; earnings are 10 years after enrollment, all majors combined.
What students study here
Most popular majors at California State University-Bakersfield
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what California State University-Bakersfield actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — California State University-Bakersfield's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | $102,298 |
| Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering. | $97,998 |
| Computer Engineering. | $93,797 |
| Engineering Science. | $88,948 |
| Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy. | $82,315 |
| Computer Science. | $80,432 |
| Economics. | $78,029 |
| Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences. | $69,989 |
| Mathematics. | $64,470 |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | $61,705 |
Sources: IPEDS Completions (C2023_a; bachelor's-level first majors, 2-digit CIP family — share is of the top 5 only) · College Scorecard program-level outcomes (PP-FOS). Full college-vs-major comparison: /college-outcomes →
Student body & economic mobility
Who attends here — and what the campus adds.
Opportunity Insights data. It measures two things at once: how many lower-income students a college enrols, and how many of them reach the top earnings quintile later. A high rate says the college does both — it does not establish that the campus caused the earnings, because the students it admits differ from the students it doesn't. Read it as a signal about access and destination, not as proof of value added.
Full leaderboards: /college-mobility →
AI program signal
AI + computing education at California State University-Bakersfield
Full multi-lens comparison: /ai-colleges →
Alternatives to California State University-Bakersfield
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Related reading
College admissions · August 21, 2026
CSU admissions · August 11, 2026
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At a glance
JSON · Using this page with an AI assistantCalifornia State University-Bakersfield is a public four-year college in CA. It admitted 88% of applicants (13,950 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-blind.
Cost: about $5,652 a year on average with aid, $19,522 a year at full price for in-state students.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $59,009 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $567,482 ahead with aid, $512,002 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing ($102,298); Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering ($97,998); Computer Engineering ($93,797).
First-year admit rate by major, Fall 2025: lowest Management 72.6% (299 applied); highest Mathematics 93.9% (147 applied).
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 14% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 33% of those reached the top fifth as adults.
Nursing: freshmen enter as pre-nursing and apply into the program later; NCLEX-RN first-time pass rate 93.8% (2024/2025, California Board of Registered Nursing).
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/california-state-university-bakersfield.json