College profile
California State University-Chico
CA · Public · Mid-size city · 22,263 applicants 2023
A parent's read
- The major moves the money more than the admit letter. Computer Science grads from here earn about $127,498 four years out; music grads about $42,269 — a 3.0× spread on the same diploma. Have the major conversation before you deposit, not after.
- The payoff holds even at full price: roughly 6× over a decade. With no aid at all — the full in-state ~$26,283/yr — a decade of median earnings (~$64,172/yr) still runs about 6× 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 ~$14,480/yr among aid recipients. Major value play for in-state residents.
Best for
- In-state residents (tuition ~$8,472 — major value play)
- Students drawn to Business, Management, & Marketing or Social Sciences (the two biggest majors)
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?
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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
3.42 average
unstated — the Common Data Set does not state whether its GPA is weighted or unweighted, so a family's own GPA cannot be aligned to it, enrolled first-year students (Fall 2022 (2022-2023 Common Data Set)). CSU Chico is broadly accessible; this is the typical profile of enrolling students. Cal State is test-blind (no SAT/ACT in admissions), so the a–g GPA is the key academic signal. Source ↗
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: 94%.
| Major | Applicants | Admitted | Admit rate Fall 2025 |
Earlier year for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 1,285 | 1,169 | 91.0% | Fall 2021: 93.1% ↓ |
| Animal Science | 1,218 | 1,145 | 94.0% | Fall 2021: 93.4% |
| Management | 1,144 | 1,006 | 87.9% | Fall 2021: 89.5% ↓ |
| Criminal Justice | 825 | 697 | 84.5% | Fall 2021: 88.3% ↓ |
| Marketing | 808 | 735 | 91.0% | Fall 2021: 92.6% ↓ |
| Mechanical Engineering | 711 | 644 | 90.6% | Fall 2021: 92.2% ↓ |
| Finance | 674 | 599 | 88.9% | Fall 2021: 91.9% ↓ |
| Exercise Physiology | 634 | 597 | 94.2% | Fall 2021: 91.7% ↑ |
| Civil Engineering | 601 | 562 | 93.5% | Fall 2021: 93.0% |
| Construction Engineering Technology/Management | 510 | 458 | 89.8% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↓ |
| Political Science/Government | 477 | 431 | 90.4% | Fall 2021: 93.9% ↓ |
| Computer Science | 435 | 387 | 89.0% | Fall 2021: 94.3% ↓ |
| Cell and Molecular Biology | 382 | 361 | 94.5% | Fall 2021: 96.3% ↓ |
| Child Development/Early Childhood Education | 332 | 289 | 87.0% | Fall 2021: 91.9% ↓ |
| Accountancy | 327 | 304 | 93.0% | Fall 2021: 89.3% ↑ |
| Electrical and Electronic Engineering | 318 | 282 | 88.7% | Fall 2021: 86.4% ↑ |
| Biology | 299 | 279 | 93.3% | Fall 2021: 96.8% ↓ |
| Kinesiology/Physical Education | 290 | 254 | 87.6% | Fall 2021: 91.7% ↓ |
| Art (Studio/Professional Performance) | 287 | 256 | 89.2% | Fall 2021: 92.5% ↓ |
| Liberal Studies | 286 | 268 | 93.7% | Fall 2021: 91.5% ↑ |
| Agricultural Business | 274 | 257 | 93.8% | Fall 2021: 92.6% ↑ |
| Public Health | 269 | 242 | 90.0% | Fall 2021: 92.8% ↓ |
| Biochemistry | 232 | 215 | 92.7% | Fall 2021: 95.0% ↓ |
| Speech Communication | 207 | 195 | 94.2% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↑ |
| Environmental Science | 196 | 187 | 95.4% | Fall 2021: 95.9% |
| English | 194 | 183 | 94.3% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↑ |
| Computer Engineering | 182 | 167 | 91.8% | Fall 2021: 90.8% |
| Social Work | 174 | 149 | 85.6% | Fall 2021: 88.4% ↓ |
| Art 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. | 168 | 149 | 88.7% | Fall 2021: 91.0% ↓ |
| Economics | 149 | 137 | 91.9% | Fall 2021: 91.9% |
| Musical Theatre | 148 | 135 | 91.2% | Fall 2021: 93.0% ↓ |
| Music Industry & Technology | 140 | 125 | 89.3% | Fall 2021: 92.3% ↓ |
| Chemistry | 134 | 126 | 94.0% | Fall 2021: 94.5% |
| Dietetics & Food Administration/Nutritional Science | 131 | 115 | 87.8% | Fall 2021: 93.0% ↓ |
| Sociology | 131 | 122 | 93.1% | Fall 2021: 90.5% ↑ |
| Broadcast Arts | 129 | 112 | 86.8% | Fall 2021: 91.6% ↓ |
| Journalism | 117 | 100 | 85.5% | Fall 2021: 93.2% ↓ |
| History | 117 | 103 | 88.0% | Fall 2021: 90.4% ↓ |
| Agricultural Science and Education | 109 | 100 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↓ |
| Communicative Disorders | 104 | 101 | 97.1% | Fall 2021: 97.2% |
| Mechatronic Engineering | 92 | 82 | 89.1% | Fall 2021: 94.0% ↓ |
| Social Science/Social and Behavioral Sciences | 88 | 78 | 88.6% | Fall 2021: 95.5% ↓ |
| Microbiology | 79 | 78 | 98.7% | Fall 2021: 91.8% ↑ |
| Health Services Administration | 76 | 58 | 76.3% | Fall 2021: 85.7% ↓ |
| Ecology | 69 | 64 | 92.8% | Fall 2021: 98.0% ↓ |
| Agronomy/Crop Science | 67 | 65 | 97.0% | Fall 2021: 96.6% |
| Business Administration | 67 | 62 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 79.2% ↑ |
| Recreation Administration | 63 | 57 | 90.5% | Fall 2021: 93.7% ↓ |
| Communication Design | 62 | 55 | 88.7% | Fall 2021: 100.0% ↓ |
| Theatre Arts | 61 | 52 | 85.2% | Fall 2021: 90.6% ↓ |
| Botany | 60 | 55 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 88.1% ↑ |
| Anthropology | 60 | 56 | 93.3% | Fall 2021: 87.7% ↑ |
| Human Resources/Personnel Management | 58 | 55 | 94.8% | Fall 2021: 91.1% ↑ |
| Information Systems | 57 | 50 | 87.7% | Fall 2021: 93.0% ↓ |
| Business Analytics | 54 | 50 | 92.6% | — |
| Mathematics | 54 | 51 | 94.4% | Fall 2021: 89.2% ↑ |
| Management Information Systems | 47 | 41 | 87.2% | Fall 2021: 90.0% ↓ |
| Manufacturing Processes | 41 | 35 | 85.4% | Fall 2021: 88.0% ↓ |
| Applied Mathematics | 39 | 36 | 92.3% | Fall 2021: 91.4% |
| Physics | 39 | 35 | 89.7% | Fall 2021: 92.7% ↓ |
| Music Education | 37 | 33 | 89.2% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↓ |
| Geography | 36 | 30 | 83.3% | Fall 2021: 88.9% ↓ |
| Concrete Industry Management | 35 | 31 | 88.6% | Fall 2021: 91.7% ↓ |
| Agricultural Communication | 34 | 33 | 97.1% | Fall 2022: 93.1% ↑ |
| Music 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. | 34 | 29 | 85.3% | Fall 2021: 81.6% ↑ |
| Mathematics Education | 27 | 26 | 96.3% | Fall 2021: 87.9% ↑ |
| Philosophy | 26 | 23 | 88.5% | Fall 2021: 86.5% ↑ |
| Statistics | 24 | 22 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 93.3% ↓ |
| Art History | 23 | 22 | 95.7% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↑ |
| Spanish | 23 | 20 | 87.0% | Fall 2021: 80.6% ↑ |
| Humanities | 23 | 20 | 87.0% | Fall 2021: 100.0% ↓ |
| Geology | 22 | 21 | 95.5% | Fall 2021: 84.6% ↑ |
| Production/Operations Information Systems | 19 | 17 | 89.5% | Fall 2021: 93.3% ↓ |
| Public Administration | 19 | 16 | 84.2% | Fall 2021: 94.4% ↓ |
| Natural Science | 12 | 11 | 91.7% | Fall 2024: 85.7% ↑ |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Religious Studies transfer path | 25 | 18 | 72.0% | Fall 2021: 83.3% ↓ |
| Gender/Ethnic/Women's Studies transfer path | 13 | 11 | 84.6% | Fall 2023: 80.8% ↑ |
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-Chico actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by California State University-Chico'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
+$537K ahead at full price +$584K 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-Chico
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what California State University-Chico actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — California State University-Chico's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Computer Science. | $127,498 |
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | $117,543 |
| Construction Management. | $108,021 |
| Electrical/Electronic Engineering Technologies/Technicians. | $106,225 |
| Engineering, Other. | $103,272 |
| Computer Engineering. | $97,345 |
| Mechanical Engineering. | $93,555 |
| Civil Engineering. | $92,472 |
| Computer and Information Sciences, General. | $91,059 |
| Engineering-Related Fields. | $86,430 |
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-Chico
Full multi-lens comparison: /ai-colleges →
Alternatives to California State University-Chico
Matched not just by selectivity, but by strategic goal — what a family actually decides on.
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Feeder high schools
Which high schools send graduates to California State University-Chico?
Enrolled — from the schools' matriculation lists
7 high schools publish a numbered matriculation list — where their graduates actually enrolled, counted, in the school's own School Profile — and name California State University-Chico on it. Between them they printed 12 enrolled graduates. Ranked by graduates per class year enrolling at California State University-Chico, from each school's own published list: the number that school printed, divided by the class years its list covers. The published total and the school's own years label are shown beside every school, so a one-year list and a five-year list can sit on the same page. A list whose class years we cannot read is not divided by a guess — it is listed below with its total instead.
Admitted — from the schools' acceptance lists
3 high schools publish a numbered list of college acceptances — where their graduates were admitted, not where they enrolled — and name California State University-Chico on it. Between them they printed 22 admissions. Ranked by admissions per class year to California State University-Chico, from each school's own published acceptances list: the number that school printed, divided by the class years its list covers. Admits are counted at each college a student was admitted to, the same way the UC Reach Score counts a student admitted to three UC campuses three times — so this is a count of admissions, not of students. The published total and the school's own years label are shown beside every school, and a list whose class years we cannot read is listed below with its total rather than divided by a guess.
All 10 feeder schools, ranked →
Counted from each school's own published document, linked on that school's page. A high school that is not here does not publish a numbered list we could read — that is all absence means, and it says nothing about its graduates. Where a school publishes both, the two lists are shown separately: an acceptances list is not a list of enrollments, and the two are never added together.
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-Chico is a public four-year college in CA. It admitted 94% of applicants (22,263 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-blind.
Cost: about $14,480 a year on average with aid, $26,283 a year at full price for in-state students.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $64,172 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $583,800 ahead with aid, $536,588 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Computer Science ($127,498); Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing ($117,543); Construction Management ($108,021).
First-year admit rate by major, Fall 2025: lowest Criminal Justice 84.5% (825 applied); highest Communicative Disorders 97.1% (104 applied). 2 majors are reported on the transfer side only (freshmen enter as a pre-major): Religious Studies 72.0%, Gender/Ethnic/Women's Studies 84.6%.
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 6% 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 93.2% (2024/2025, California Board of Registered Nursing).
High schools that publish a numbered matriculation list and name California State University-Chico: 7, 12 enrolled students between them — ranked by graduates per class year, most often Saint Francis Catholic High School (3.0 per class year, 3 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Santa Margarita Catholic High School (2.0 per class year, 2 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Francis Parker School (0.5 per class year, 2 over 4 class years, 2022-2025). Each figure is the number that school printed divided by the class years its own list covers; the totals and years are shown. These are the schools that publish such a list, not every school that sends students; full list: https://highschoolreach.com/leaderboards/feeder-schools/california-state-university-chico.
High schools that publish a numbered list of college acceptances naming California State University-Chico: 3, 22 admissions between them — ranked by admissions per class year, most often Archbishop Mitty High School (20.0 per class year, 20 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Canterbury School-Fort Myers (1.0 per class year, 1 over 1 class year, Class of 2026); Lycée Français de San Francisco (0.3 per class year, 1 over 3 class years, Classes 2022, 2023, 2024). Admits are counted at each college, so this counts admissions, not students. These are a different set of documents from the matriculation lists above and the two are never added together; full list: https://highschoolreach.com/leaderboards/feeder-schools/california-state-university-chico.
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/california-state-university-chico.json