Business Administration & Management is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #1 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 66 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for business administration & management students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 30,720 bachelor's degrees in business administration & management during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Business Administration & Management School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of business administration & management for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality business administration program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to business administration & management students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other business administration & management students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt business administration & management students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized business administration & management related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for business administration & management students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Business Administration & Management Bachelor's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Business Administration & Management in California
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in business administration & management.
10 Top California Schools for a Bachelor's in Business Administration
It is difficult to beat University of Southern California if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in business administration & management. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those business administration & management students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California earn $17,393 more than the typical business administration grad.
University of California - Berkeley is a good decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in business administration & management. Located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Business Administration & Management bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley earn a boost of approximately $28,854 above the average income of business administration & management graduates.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in business administration & management needs to take a look at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a very large public university located in the small suburb of San Luis Obispo.
Bachelor's recipients from the business administration & management degree program at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo earn $18,460 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
The University of Arizona Global Campus is a wonderful decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in business administration & management. Located in the large city of San Diego, UAGC is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those business administration & management students who get their bachelor's degree from The University of Arizona Global Campus receive $7,067 more than the typical business administration student.
Golden Gate University - San Francisco is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of San Francisco.
Bachelor's recipients from the business administration & management program at Golden Gate University - San Francisco get $22,699 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Pepperdine is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Malibu.
Those business administration & management students who get their bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University receive $8,379 more than the average business administration graduate.
Located in the medium-sized city of Orange, Chapman is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Business Administration & Management bachelor's degree recipients from Chapman University receive an earnings boost of around $2,275 above the typical earnings of business administration & management graduates.
Located in the large city of Irvine, UC Irvine is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the business administration & management program at University of California - Irvine get $2,677 above the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of San Francisco, USFCA is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the business administration & management program at University of San Francisco make $16,220 more than the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Gain supervisory and managerial expertise you can use throughout your career at Southern New Hampshire University. Our business degree program focuses on developing skilled professionals who can apply proven leadership skills in a variety of roles.
Explore operation management, policies and administration from an IT perspective with this specialized online bachelor's degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Business Administration & Management Bachelor's Degree Schools in California award.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.