College profile
California State University-Northridge
CA · Public · Large city · 29,789 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 $116,613 four years out; linguistic, comparative, and related language studies and services grads about $32,939 — a 3.5× 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 ~$20,485/yr — a decade of median earnings (~$59,115/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 ~$7,021/yr among aid recipients. Major value play for in-state residents.
Best for
- In-state residents (tuition ~$7,458 — major value play)
- Students drawn to Business, Management, & Marketing or Psychology (the two biggest majors)
- Students who thrive in a large, programmatic environment
The reality
- Out-of-state tuition is 2.7× 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
Broadly accessible
CSU Northridge 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 2,510 | 2,313 | 92.2% | Fall 2021: 89.5% ↑ |
| Radiologic Sciences | 2,005 | 1,853 | 92.4% | Fall 2021: 89.9% ↑ |
| Biology | 1,742 | 1,611 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 92.4% |
| Kinesiology/Physical Education | 1,551 | 1,419 | 91.5% | Fall 2021: 85.9% ↑ |
| Mechanical Engineering | 1,503 | 1,409 | 93.7% | Fall 2021: 90.6% ↑ |
| Radio Television Film/Telecommunications | 1,484 | 1,368 | 92.2% | Fall 2021: 88.4% ↑ |
| Criminal Justice | 1,336 | 1,194 | 89.4% | Fall 2021: 85.8% ↑ |
| Marketing | 1,318 | 1,193 | 90.5% | Fall 2021: 87.3% ↑ |
| Management | 1,307 | 1,204 | 92.1% | Fall 2021: 86.8% ↑ |
| Computer Science | 1,136 | 1,055 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 90.6% ↑ |
| Real Estate | 902 | 779 | 86.4% | Fall 2021: 83.7% ↑ |
| Finance | 881 | 823 | 93.4% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↑ |
| Political Science/Government | 869 | 825 | 94.9% | Fall 2021: 92.8% ↑ |
| Public Health | 797 | 737 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 91.4% ↑ |
| Electrical Engineering | 734 | 657 | 89.5% | Fall 2021: 86.6% ↑ |
| Civil Engineering | 711 | 671 | 94.4% | Fall 2021: 92.7% ↑ |
| 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. | 685 | 624 | 91.1% | Fall 2021: 86.3% ↑ |
| Clinical Science/Biomedical Laboratory Science | 624 | 580 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 91.6% ↑ |
| Child Development/Early Childhood Education | 590 | 520 | 88.1% | Fall 2021: 89.0% |
| Cell and Molecular Biology | 561 | 538 | 95.9% | Fall 2021: 94.1% ↑ |
| Apparel Merchandising and Management | 468 | 409 | 87.4% | Fall 2023: 89.9% ↓ |
| Accountancy | 451 | 419 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 94.0% ↓ |
| Business Administration | 431 | 398 | 92.3% | Fall 2023: 93.3% |
| Biochemistry | 428 | 404 | 94.4% | Fall 2021: 93.0% ↑ |
| Computer Engineering | 403 | 372 | 92.3% | Fall 2021: 88.8% ↑ |
| Theatre Arts | 403 | 362 | 89.8% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↓ |
| Sociology | 356 | 335 | 94.1% | Fall 2021: 89.2% ↑ |
| Interior Design | 354 | 316 | 89.3% | Fall 2022: 92.4% ↓ |
| English | 347 | 325 | 93.7% | Fall 2021: 91.8% ↑ |
| Construction Engineering Technology/Management | 329 | 297 | 90.3% | Fall 2021: 83.9% ↑ |
| Liberal Studies | 318 | 297 | 93.4% | Fall 2021: 88.4% ↑ |
| Speech Communication | 299 | 281 | 94.0% | Fall 2021: 90.5% ↑ |
| Legal Environment of Business | 279 | 253 | 90.7% | Fall 2021: 88.0% ↑ |
| Economics | 264 | 241 | 91.3% | Fall 2021: 86.9% ↑ |
| Health Care Management/Administration | 215 | 196 | 91.2% | Fall 2021: 88.4% ↑ |
| History | 213 | 200 | 93.9% | Fall 2021: 81.4% ↑ |
| Dietetics & Food Administration/Nutritional Science | 200 | 176 | 88.0% | Fall 2022: 91.1% ↓ |
| Chemistry | 199 | 188 | 94.5% | Fall 2021: 93.8% |
| Physics | 187 | 173 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 91.5% |
| Information Systems | 167 | 153 | 91.6% | Fall 2021: 86.4% ↑ |
| Microbiology | 162 | 155 | 95.7% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↑ |
| Music (Professional Performance) 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. | 158 | 117 | 74.1% | Fall 2021: 44.3% ↑ |
| Environmental Science | 150 | 143 | 95.3% | Fall 2023: 96.2% |
| Global Supply Chain Management | 137 | 124 | 90.5% | Fall 2021: 81.8% ↑ |
| Computer Science and Information Technology | 137 | 129 | 94.2% | Fall 2021: 92.2% ↑ |
| Mathematics | 127 | 120 | 94.5% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↑ |
| Communicative Disorders | 122 | 117 | 95.9% | Fall 2021: 92.9% ↑ |
| Hospitality Recreation & Tourism | 110 | 97 | 88.2% | Fall 2021: 80.9% ↑ |
| Journalism | 109 | 100 | 91.7% | Fall 2021: 90.1% ↑ |
| 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. | 108 | 88 | 81.5% | Fall 2021: 29.4% ↑ |
| Spanish | 85 | 78 | 91.8% | Fall 2021: 85.5% ↑ |
| Deaf Studies | 85 | 80 | 94.1% | Fall 2021: 93.5% |
| Ecology | 84 | 78 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 94.3% ↓ |
| Urban Studies | 80 | 74 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 96.5% ↓ |
| Public Relations | 77 | 72 | 93.5% | Fall 2021: 91.3% ↑ |
| Anthropology | 75 | 72 | 96.0% | Fall 2021: 85.4% ↑ |
| Dance | 69 | 57 | 82.6% | — |
| Philosophy | 59 | 53 | 89.8% | Fall 2021: 80.6% ↑ |
| Applied Mathematics | 57 | 54 | 94.7% | Fall 2021: 97.1% ↓ |
| Operations Research | 56 | 52 | 92.9% | Fall 2021: 90.9% ↑ |
| Manufacturing Engineering | 55 | 52 | 94.5% | Fall 2021: 87.5% ↑ |
| Statistics | 53 | 49 | 92.5% | Fall 2021: 86.4% ↑ |
| Industrial Management and Engineering | 49 | 42 | 85.7% | Fall 2021: 84.1% ↑ |
| Linguistics | 43 | 38 | 88.4% | Fall 2021: 96.4% ↓ |
| Mexican-American/Chicano/Chicana Studies | 42 | 34 | 81.0% | Fall 2021: 79.1% ↑ |
| African-American Studies | 32 | 29 | 90.6% | Fall 2021: 70.2% ↑ |
| Geology | 30 | 28 | 93.3% | Fall 2021: 93.3% |
| World Languages and Cultures | 27 | 23 | 85.2% | Fall 2021: 90.2% ↓ |
| Geography | 24 | 22 | 91.7% | Fall 2022: 86.7% ↑ |
| Environmental and Occupational Health | 21 | 18 | 85.7% | Fall 2021: 90.2% ↓ |
| Interdisciplinary Studies/Special Major | 16 | 15 | 93.8% | Fall 2024: 91.7% ↑ |
| Asian American Studies | 15 | 13 | 86.7% | Fall 2021: 71.4% ↑ |
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 | 92 | 92 | 100.0% | Fall 2024: 100.0% |
| Public Administration transfer path | 46 | 31 | 67.4% | Fall 2021: 86.7% ↓ |
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-Northridge actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by California State University-Northridge'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
+$509K ahead at full price +$563K 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-Northridge
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what California State University-Northridge actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — California State University-Northridge's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | $116,613 |
| Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions. | $105,747 |
| Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering. | $104,065 |
| Computer Science. | $101,348 |
| Computer Engineering. | $101,021 |
| Mechanical Engineering. | $99,216 |
| Civil Engineering. | $97,123 |
| Accounting and Related Services. | $92,329 |
| Computer and Information Sciences, General. | $91,131 |
| Construction Engineering Technology/Technician. | $89,804 |
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-Northridge
Full multi-lens comparison: /ai-colleges →
Alternatives to California State University-Northridge
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-Northridge?
Enrolled — from the schools' matriculation lists
12 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-Northridge on it. Between them they printed 26 enrolled graduates. Ranked by graduates per class year enrolling at California State University-Northridge, 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.
and 2 more
Admitted — from the schools' acceptance lists
2 high schools publish a numbered list of college acceptances — where their graduates were admitted, not where they enrolled — and name California State University-Northridge on it. Between them they printed 16 admissions. Ranked by admissions per class year to California State University-Northridge, 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 14 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-Northridge is a public four-year college in CA. It admitted 93% of applicants (29,789 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-blind.
Cost: about $7,021 a year on average with aid, $20,485 a year at full price for in-state students.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $59,115 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $563,066 ahead with aid, $509,210 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing ($116,613); Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions ($105,747); Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering ($104,065).
First-year admit rate by major, Fall 2025: lowest Music (Professional Performance) 74.1% (158 applied); highest Cell and Molecular Biology 95.9% (561 applied). 2 majors are reported on the transfer side only (freshmen enter as a pre-major): Nursing Pre-Licensure 100.0%, Public Administration 67.4%.
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 20% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 32% of those reached the top fifth as adults.
Nursing: the BSN admits only students who already hold a bachelor's degree; NCLEX-RN first-time pass rate 85.5% (2024/2025, California Board of Registered Nursing).
High schools that publish a numbered matriculation list and name California State University-Northridge: 12, 26 enrolled students between them — ranked by graduates per class year, most often Loyola High School (2.2 per class year, 11 over 5 class years, 2020-24); Orange County School of the Arts (2.0 per class year, 2 over 1 class year, Class of 2026); Saint Joseph-Notre Dame High School (2.0 per class year, 2 over 1 class year, Class of 2026). 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-northridge.
High schools that publish a numbered list of college acceptances naming California State University-Northridge: 2, 16 admissions between them — ranked by admissions per class year, most often Archbishop Mitty High School (12.0 per class year, 12 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Lycée Français de San Francisco (1.3 per class year, 4 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-northridge.
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/california-state-university-northridge.json