College profile
California State University-Channel Islands
CA · Public · Fringe rural · 10,082 applicants 2023
A parent's read
- The major moves the money more than the admit letter. Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing grads from here earn about $112,691 four years out; history grads about $42,229 — a 2.7× spread on the same diploma. Have the major conversation before you deposit, not after.
- The payoff holds even at full price: roughly 7× over a decade. With no aid at all — the full in-state ~$23,561/yr — a decade of median earnings (~$62,152/yr) still runs about 7× the four-year cost. This payoff doesn't depend on qualifying for anything. (Out-of-state costs more.)
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 ~$9,849/yr among aid recipients. Major value play for in-state residents.
Best for
- In-state residents (tuition ~$7,159 — major value play)
- Students drawn to Psychology or Health Professions (the two biggest majors)
The reality
- Out-of-state tuition is 2.8× 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 Channel Islands 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: 93%.
| Major | Applicants | Admitted | Admit rate Fall 2025 |
Earlier year for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Administration | 892 | 828 | 92.8% | Fall 2021: 90.7% ↑ |
| Psychology | 841 | 770 | 91.6% | Fall 2021: 92.5% |
| Biology | 723 | 686 | 94.9% | Fall 2021: 93.4% ↑ |
| Health Science | 381 | 353 | 92.7% | Fall 2021: 93.5% |
| Environmental Science | 293 | 276 | 94.2% | Fall 2021: 93.7% |
| Computer Science | 288 | 260 | 90.3% | Fall 2021: 91.5% ↓ |
| Mechatronic Engineering | 254 | 236 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 93.0% |
| Political Science/Government | 198 | 181 | 91.4% | Fall 2021: 91.7% |
| Liberal Studies | 175 | 168 | 96.0% | Fall 2021: 94.7% ↑ |
| Chemistry | 172 | 163 | 94.8% | Fall 2021: 94.4% |
| Art | 155 | 142 | 91.6% | Fall 2021: 93.7% ↓ |
| Early Childhood Studies | 151 | 138 | 91.4% | Fall 2021: 90.6% |
| Sociology | 147 | 140 | 95.2% | Fall 2021: 90.5% ↑ |
| Communications | 108 | 96 | 88.9% | Fall 2021: 91.9% ↓ |
| English | 77 | 70 | 90.9% | Fall 2021: 90.1% |
| History | 76 | 72 | 94.7% | Fall 2021: 93.7% |
| Economics | 73 | 65 | 89.0% | Fall 2021: 87.1% ↑ |
| Music (Professional Performance) | 61 | 56 | 91.8% | Fall 2024: 91.1% |
| Theatre Arts | 56 | 49 | 87.5% | Fall 2024: 90.6% ↓ |
| Information Technology | 53 | 52 | 98.1% | Fall 2021: 85.0% ↑ |
| Applied Physics | 52 | 45 | 86.5% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↓ |
| Anthropology | 51 | 46 | 90.2% | Fall 2021: 93.1% ↓ |
| Mathematics | 50 | 47 | 94.0% | Fall 2021: 95.9% ↓ |
| Data Science | 37 | 36 | 97.3% | — |
| International Studies/Global Studies | 29 | 23 | 79.3% | Fall 2021: 96.0% ↓ |
| Art History | 28 | 28 | 100.0% | Fall 2021: 92.3% ↑ |
| Dance | 27 | 23 | 85.2% | Fall 2023: 79.4% ↑ |
| Mexican-American/Chicano/Chicana Studies | 22 | 20 | 90.9% | Fall 2021: 100.0% ↓ |
| Spanish | 19 | 17 | 89.5% | Fall 2021: 93.5% ↓ |
Majors reported by transfer path only — Fall 2025
CSU reported no first-year admit row for these majors. At most campuses that means a freshman is not admitted straight into the program: they enter a pre-major (pre-nursing, for example) and apply into it later, while transfer applicants apply to the program directly. The transfer numbers below are the only published gate, and at a program like nursing they are the number a family should plan around.
| Major | Transfer applicants | Admitted | Admit rate Fall 2025, transfer |
Earlier year for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nursing Pre-Licensure transfer path impactedA CSU term: the program gets more qualified applicants than it has seats, so the campus adds admission requirements beyond the CSU minimum — a higher GPA bar, specific courses, or priority for local students. Treat impacted majors as more competitive than the campus's overall admit rate suggests. | 241 | 19 | 7.9% | Fall 2021: 5.6% ↑ |
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-Channel Islands actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by California State University-Channel Islands'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
+$527K ahead at full price +$582K 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-Channel Islands
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what California State University-Channel Islands actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — California State University-Channel Islands's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | $112,691 |
| Computer Science. | $100,887 |
| Economics. | $71,662 |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | $71,183 |
| Mathematics. | $70,628 |
| Environmental/Natural Resources Management and Policy. | $67,558 |
| Biology, General. | $62,384 |
| Communication and Media Studies. | $59,332 |
| Chemistry. | $58,498 |
| Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences, General. | $58,396 |
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-Channel Islands
Full multi-lens comparison: /ai-colleges →
Alternatives to California State University-Channel Islands
Matched not just by selectivity, but by strategic goal — what a family actually decides on.
Or compare any college side-by-side
Deciding on California State University-Channel Islands?
Get the full picture in one free report — your child's Reach / Competitive / Match / Likely odds and your real net price, for California State University-Channel Islands and every other college on your list.
Get your child's odds at California State University-Channel Islands →Score-odds calculator · Improve the score first · Find merit aid
Related reading
College admissions · August 21, 2026
CSU admissions · August 11, 2026
For Parents
Get alerts when California State University-Channel Islands's numbers change
New admit rates, costs, and outcomes — a few alerts a year, no spam. Your email also saves your list across devices.
Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
At a glance
JSON · Using this page with an AI assistantCalifornia State University-Channel Islands is a public four-year college in CA. It admitted 93% of applicants (10,082 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-blind.
Cost: about $9,849 a year on average with aid, $23,561 a year at full price for in-state students.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $62,152 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $582,124 ahead with aid, $527,276 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing ($112,691); Computer Science ($100,887); Economics ($71,662).
First-year admit rate by major, Fall 2025: lowest Communications 88.9% (108 applied); highest Liberal Studies 96.0% (175 applied). 1 major is reported on the transfer side only (freshmen enter as a pre-major): Nursing Pre-Licensure 7.9%.
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 5% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 32% 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 86.0% (2024/2025, California Board of Registered Nursing).
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/california-state-university-channel-islands.json