Where can your student actually get into liberal studies?

• 49 colleges in California offer a bachelor's liberal studies program: 42 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 6 more report a liberal studies admit rate in the UC/CSU data; 1 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: Ashford University (681), California State University-Sacramento (422), California State University-Los Angeles (402).
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): University of California-San Diego — Education Sciences, Fall 2025: 970 applied, 295 admitted (30%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: Sonoma State University — 100.0% (104 applied, 104 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: University of the Pacific, $69,342.
• Lowest average net price with aid: California State University-Los Angeles, $3,967 per year.

Sonoma State reports its plain liberal studies major on the transfer side only, which does not shut a freshman out: the campus's blended liberal studies and teacher credential track admitted 104 of the 104 first-year students who applied. Where a campus does report a first-year gate for the major itself, it can be a good deal tighter than that, as at San Diego State, where 1,054 applied and 652 were admitted. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · All 1251 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/liberal-studies?state=CA, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a liberal studies 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 liberal studies 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 liberal studies list needs a few campuses where most first-year applicants are admitted, at least one where the program itself is selective, and a note next to each one about whether the teaching credential is folded into the four years or comes after them. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359