Where can your student study history, and what does the degree pay?

At a glance · California

• 36 colleges in California report a bachelor's history program in federal outcome data or a history admit rate in the UC/CSU data.
• Hardest reported gate: University of California-Berkeley — History, Fall 2025: 1,065 applied, 138 admitted (13%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: Sonoma State University — 98.8% (81 applied, 80 admitted, Fall 2025).
• 1 CSU campus report history on the transfer side only: freshmen enter as another major or undeclared and apply into the program later.
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: University of Southern California, $79,940.
• Lowest average net price with aid: California State University-Los Angeles, $3,967 per year.

Cal State Monterey Bay reports history on the transfer side only, which means it published no first-year row for the major: freshmen there start in another major or undeclared and declare history later, while transfer applicants apply straight into it. Everywhere else in this data history reports a first-year number, so the gate a family plans around is admission to the campus itself. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · Show all 487 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. 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); 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/history, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a history 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 another major or undeclared, 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

Because the campus is the gate, a history list should be built on what each school costs your family after aid and what its graduates earn four years out. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359