by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.
California State University - Monterey Bay was awarded 43 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is clinical, counseling & applied psychology.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
CSUMB is ranked #578 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when CSUMB held the #707 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 161 colleges in California, CSUMB is ranked at #72.
See all of the rankings for California State University - Monterey Bay.
Because it has a high acceptance rate of 92%, some consider CSUMB to be a safety school. But don't just assume that admittance is in the bag. Make sure to spend enough time on your application so that it is in tip-top shape.
The student to faculty ratio is often used as a measure to gauge how much access students will have to their professors - the lower the number, the better. At California State University - Monterey Bay, this rate is 20 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1.
Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.
The full-time faculty percentage at California State University - Monterey Bay is 49%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.
California State University - Monterey Bay has a freshmen retention rate of 79%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
When it comes to finishing their studies on time, those seeking a bachelor's degree from CSUMB have a four-year graduation rate of 29%. This is comparable to the national average of 33.3%
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 6,509 undergraduates at CSUMB with 5,703 being full-time and 806 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $6,935 | $7,165 | $10,763 | $15,344 | $19,231 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of CSUMB, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At CSUMB, approximately 37% of students took out student loans averaging $5,210 a year. That adds up to $20,840 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for California State University - Monterey Bay.
See which majors at California State University - Monterey Bay make the most money.
Get more details about the location of California State University - Monterey Bay.
Contact details for CSUMB are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 100 Campus Center, Seaside, CA 93955-8001 |
| Phone: | 831-582-3000 |
| Website: | https://csumb.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/CSUMB |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/csumb |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 374 | $47,825 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 242 | $30,413 |
| General Psychology | 231 | $29,168 |
| Computer Science | 191 | $71,458 |
| Health & Physical Education | 172 | $29,929 |
| General Biology | 122 | $35,312 |
| Human Services | 96 | $37,501 |
| Natural Resources Conservation | 93 | $30,712 |
| General Social Sciences | 89 | $34,678 |
| Marine Science | 85 | $27,268 |
Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.
In 2022-2023, 3,065 students took at least one online class at California State University - Monterey Bay. This is a decrease from the 6,310 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 3,065 | 502 |
| 2021-2022 | 6,310 | 1,228 |
| 2020-2021 | 7,379 | 7,061 |
| 2018-2019 | 2,692 | 487 |
Learn more about online learning at California State University - Monterey Bay.
If you’re considering California State University - Monterey Bay, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against CSUMB? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.