2024 Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California

Students have lots of options to chooose from today when trying to decide which college to attend. College Factual was founded, in part, to help students make the decision as to what would be the best school for them. Our “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California” ranking is part of that endeavor.

In 2020-2021, 3,904 people earned their degree in systems engineering, making the major the 160th most popular in the United States. In 2019-2020, systems engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $89,736 and had an average of $21,799 in loans still to pay off.

Across California, there were 537 systems engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $125,714 and $0 respectively.

For this year’s “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California” ranking, we looked at 3 colleges that offer a degree in systems engineering. This ranking identifies schools with high-quality systems engineering programs that also have a lower cost than schools of similar quality.

To come up with these rankings, we looked at factors such as the cost to attend the school after aid is awarded and overall quality of the systems engineering program at the school. For more information, check out our ranking methodology.

More Ways to Rank Systems Engineering Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California” ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

We’ve created a tool called College Combat that lets you create your own customized comparisons based on the factors that matter the most to you. We encourage you to try it out and pit your favorite colleges and universities head to head! If you don’t have time right now, you can bookmark it for later.

Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California.

Top 3 Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering in California

1

University of California - San Diego
La Jolla, California

#2 in overall quality

$15,240 Average Net Price

$50,251 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of California - San Diego. The school came in at #1 for the Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California. This large school is located in La Jolla, California, and it awarded 36 ’s systems engineering degrees in 2020-2021.

UCSD not only placed well in this ranking. It is also #2 on our “Best Systems Engineering Schools in California” list. It costs about $15,240 for California Systems Engineering students per year to attend UCSD.

The low undergrad student loan default rate of 1.0% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 95%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year.

Read full report on Systems Engineering at UCSD

2

Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California

#3 in overall quality

$44,467 Average Net Price

$48,301 Average Early-Career Earnings

Out of the 3 schools in the Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California that were part of this year’s ranking, Loyola Marymount University landed the #2 spot on the list. Loyola Marymount University is a fairly large school located in Los Angeles, California that handed out 10 ’s systems engineering degrees in 2020-2021.

As a testament to the quality of education offered at Loyola Marymount, the school also landed the #3 spot in our “Best Systems Engineering Schools in California” ranking. The estimated yearly cost for Loyola Marymount is $44,467 for california systems engineering students.

The low undergrad student loan default rate of 1.8% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%. With a freshman retention rate of 90%, the school does an excellent job of retaining its undergraduate students.

Full Loyola Marymount Systems Engineering Report

3

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California

#1 in overall quality

$32,569 Average Net Price

$65,044 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend University of Southern California. It ranked #3 on our 2024 Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in California list. USC is a private not-for-profit institution located in Los Angeles, California. The school has a large population, and it awarded 28 ’s degrees in 2020-2021.

USC not only placed well in this ranking. It is also #1 on our “Best Systems Engineering Schools in California” list. The yearly cost to attend University of Southern California is $32,569 for California Systems Engineering students.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 96%. The undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio of 9 to 1 is a sign that students will have more opportunities to engage with their professors one-on-one. The undergrad student loan default rate at the school is 1.3%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%.

Full USC Systems Engineering Report

• Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering in the Far Western US Region
• Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering

Notes and References

References

• 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 our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Average salary, average net price, and average tuition and fees are for the top schools only.
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to luis gomes.