College profile
California State University-Monterey Bay
CA · Public · Mid-size suburb · 11,769 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 $134,489 four years out; romance languages, literatures, and linguistics grads about $39,824 — a 3.4× spread on the same diploma. Have the major conversation before you deposit, not after.
- The payoff holds even at full price: roughly 5× over a decade. With no aid at all — the full in-state ~$26,987/yr — a decade of median earnings (~$59,247/yr) still runs about 5× the four-year cost. This payoff doesn't depend on qualifying for anything. (Out-of-state costs more.)
- Built for the AI economy. About 1 in 11 degrees here is already in AI, computer science, or data fields. This campus is leaning into the shift, not waiting for it.
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 ~$13,663/yr among aid recipients. Major value play for in-state residents.
Best for
- In-state residents (tuition ~$7,779 — major value play)
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?
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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
3.31 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 2025). CSU Monterey Bay 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: 95%.
| Major | Applicants | Admitted | Admit rate Fall 2025 |
Earlier year for comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biology | 2,091 | 2,054 | 98.2% | Fall 2021: 94.1% ↑ |
| Business Administration | 2,091 | 2,009 | 96.1% | Fall 2021: 89.8% ↑ |
| Psychology | 1,898 | 1,832 | 96.5% | Fall 2021: 92.2% ↑ |
| Marine Science | 1,492 | 1,455 | 97.5% | Fall 2021: 93.1% ↑ |
| Kinesiology/Physical Education | 910 | 889 | 97.7% | Fall 2021: 91.8% ↑ |
| Computer Science | 677 | 648 | 95.7% | Fall 2021: 94.4% ↑ |
| Environmental Science | 523 | 515 | 98.5% | Fall 2021: 97.3% ↑ |
| Liberal Studies | 413 | 399 | 96.6% | Fall 2021: 96.2% |
| Mechatronic Engineering | 390 | 380 | 97.4% | Fall 2024: 97.8% |
| Radio Television Film/Telecommunications | 279 | 268 | 96.1% | Fall 2021: 89.7% ↑ |
| Social Science/Social and Behavioral Sciences | 213 | 210 | 98.6% | Fall 2021: 93.4% ↑ |
| Human Services/Collaborative Human Services | 193 | 184 | 95.3% | Fall 2021: 95.0% |
| Sociology | 193 | 184 | 95.3% | Fall 2024: 100.0% ↓ |
| Humanities | 187 | 182 | 97.3% | Fall 2021: 93.6% ↑ |
| Human Development | 182 | 174 | 95.6% | Fall 2021: 97.0% ↓ |
| Communication Design | 180 | 176 | 97.8% | Fall 2021: 97.0% |
| Agronomy/Crop Science | 161 | 156 | 96.9% | Fall 2021: 94.4% ↑ |
| Mathematics | 115 | 113 | 98.3% | Fall 2021: 95.5% ↑ |
| Art | 114 | 108 | 94.7% | Fall 2021: 94.8% |
| Music | 93 | 89 | 95.7% | Fall 2021: 85.9% ↑ |
| Bilingual-Multicultural Education | 88 | 87 | 98.9% | Fall 2021: 97.9% |
| International Studies/Global Studies | 81 | 77 | 95.1% | Fall 2021: 98.0% ↓ |
| Statistics | 67 | 65 | 97.0% | Fall 2021: 97.1% |
| Hotel and Restaurant/Hospitality Management | 60 | 55 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 89.5% ↑ |
| Spanish | 43 | 39 | 90.7% | Fall 2021: 94.6% ↓ |
| Japanese | 41 | 37 | 90.2% | Fall 2021: 95.9% ↓ |
| Gender/Ethnic/Women's Studies | 29 | 27 | 93.1% | Fall 2023: 88.7% ↑ |
| Special Education | 27 | 25 | 92.6% | Fall 2021: 93.0% |
| Accountancy | 15 | 14 | 93.3% | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communications transfer path | 90 | 85 | 94.4% | Fall 2021: 90.6% ↑ |
| Nursing (RN-to-Nursing Degree) transfer path | 71 | 19 | 26.8% | Fall 2021: 82.7% ↓ |
| English transfer path | 54 | 54 | 100.0% | Fall 2021: 91.1% ↑ |
| History transfer path | 54 | 52 | 96.3% | Fall 2021: 87.2% ↑ |
| Journalism transfer path | 51 | 46 | 90.2% | Fall 2021: 90.7% |
| Political Economy transfer path | 48 | 46 | 95.8% | Fall 2021: 94.6% ↑ |
| Anthropology transfer path | 47 | 46 | 97.9% | Fall 2021: 90.7% ↑ |
| Creative Writing transfer path | 27 | 27 | 100.0% | Fall 2021: 93.8% ↑ |
| Political Science/Government transfer path | 20 | 20 | 100.0% | Fall 2021: 85.7% ↑ |
| English Education transfer path | 16 | 15 | 93.8% | Fall 2021: 100.0% ↓ |
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-Monterey Bay actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by California State University-Monterey Bay'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
+$485K ahead at full price +$538K 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-Monterey Bay
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what California State University-Monterey Bay actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — California State University-Monterey Bay's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | $134,489 |
| Computer Science. | $101,787 |
| Computer and Information Sciences, General. | $74,298 |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | $72,558 |
| Mathematics. | $62,943 |
| International/Globalization Studies. | $61,480 |
| Marine Sciences. | $59,782 |
| Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities. | $59,017 |
| Social Sciences, General. | $57,200 |
| Human Services, General. | $56,719 |
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 →
Alternatives to California State University-Monterey Bay
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Feeder high schools
Which high schools send graduates to California State University-Monterey Bay?
Enrolled — from the schools' matriculation lists
5 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-Monterey Bay on it. Between them they printed 10 enrolled graduates. Ranked by graduates per class year enrolling at California State University-Monterey Bay, 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-Monterey Bay on it. Between them they printed 20 admissions. Ranked by admissions per class year to California State University-Monterey Bay, 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 8 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-Monterey Bay is a public four-year college in CA. It admitted 95% of applicants (11,769 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-blind.
Cost: about $13,663 a year on average with aid, $26,987 a year at full price for in-state students.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $59,247 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $537,818 ahead with aid, $484,522 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing ($134,489); Computer Science ($101,787); Computer and Information Sciences, General ($74,298).
First-year admit rate by major, Fall 2025: lowest Art 94.7% (114 applied); highest Social Science/Social and Behavioral Sciences 98.6% (213 applied). 10 majors are reported on the transfer side only (freshmen enter as a pre-major): Communications 94.4%, Nursing (RN-to-Nursing Degree) 26.8%, English 100.0%, History 96.3%, and more.
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 10% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 32% of those reached the top fifth as adults.
High schools that publish a numbered matriculation list and name California State University-Monterey Bay: 5, 10 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); Stevenson School (1.0 per class year, 1 over 1 class year, Class of 2024). 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-monterey-bay.
High schools that publish a numbered list of college acceptances naming California State University-Monterey Bay: 3, 20 admissions between them — ranked by admissions per class year, most often Archbishop Mitty High School (14.0 per class year, 14 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Key School (0.7 per class year, 4 over 6 class years, 2021 - 2026, counted column "Acceptances 2021–2026"); Lycée Français de San Francisco (0.7 per class year, 2 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-monterey-bay.
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/california-state-university-monterey-bay.json