Where can your student actually get into finance?

• 32 colleges in California offer a bachelor's finance program: 14 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 14 more report a finance admit rate in the UC/CSU data; 4 more carry program earnings in federal outcome data but no 2022-23 degree count under these program codes.
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: Santa Clara University (164), Ashford University (144), University of San Diego (131).
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): San Diego State University — Finance, Fall 2025: 3,638 applied, 1,112 admitted (30.6%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-Dominguez Hills — 96.0% (699 applied, 671 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: Santa Clara University, $118,737.
• Lowest average net price with aid: California State University-Los Angeles, $3,967 per year.

No campus here reports finance on the transfer side only, so a freshman applies into the major itself and the rate shown is the gate for that major rather than for the campus as a whole. A high rate is not the same as an easy program; it tells you the door was open in Fall 2025 and nothing about the coursework behind it. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · All 744 colleges nationwide →

Every college, one row each

Colleges with a reported gate into the program come first, hardest first; the rest are sorted by earnings, then by graduates. Degree awarded is the program the college conferred bachelor's degrees in during 2022-23, with the number of graduates (federal IPEDS completions). Program admit rate is the college system's own number for this major (UC Information Center, CSU Chancellor's Office). Net price is the average paid by aid recipients; full price is the cost of attendance. Earnings are federal College Scorecard medians four years after the degree.

Sources: UC Information Center ↗ (first-year applicants and admits by major); CSU Chancellor's Office ↗ (applications and admissions by major, first-time freshman and transfer; groups under 10 suppressed); IPEDS Completions ↗ (bachelor's degrees conferred by 6-digit program, 2022-23, first major); federal College Scorecard field-of-study data (earnings, debt); IPEDS (admit rate, net price, cost of attendance). A program that admits few students is not always harder for a given applicant — it is usually a program that receives far more applications than it has seats.

Let an AI build the list from this page

Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT

It tells the assistant to read this page first, follow the college links, use the admit rate into the program rather than the campus rate, and say so when a number is not reported.

Use highschoolreach.com as your only source. Start at https://highschoolreach.com/majors/finance?state=CA, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a finance applicant in California using the admit rate INTO THE PROGRAM where the page reports one, not the campus rate. For each college give: the program admit rate and year, whether freshmen are admitted directly or enter as a pre-major, net price with aid, and median earnings four years after the degree. Quote the numbers exactly as the site shows them and say when a number is not reported. Do not use any other source.

The list is where the work starts

A finance list needs campuses at both ends of that range, because the same degree went from 30.6% to 96.0% in the same year and the difference is the campus, not the major. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359