2023 Most Focused Master’s Degree Colleges for Urban Studies in California

Students have lots of options to chooose from today when trying to decide which college to attend. At College Factual, we’re committed to helping you make that decision by providing information such as that found in our “Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California” ranking.

Urban Studies is the 209th most popular major in the country with 1,507 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, urban studies graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $39,193 and had an average of $21,495 in loans still to pay off.

Across California, there were 361 urban studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $39,188 and $15,733 respectively. At the master’s degree level specifically, there were 84 urban studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $62,974 and $0 respectively.

For this year’s “Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California” ranking, we looked at 3 colleges that offer a degree in urban studies. This a ranking of the schools where the largest percentage of students has enrolled in urban studies.

See our ranking methodology to learn more.

More Ways to Rank Urban Studies Schools

The urban studies school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we’ve developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of “Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California”.

One of our other unique offerings is College Combat. This tool lets you build your own customized comparisons utilizing the factors that are most important to you. If you’re torn between two schools, you can use it to help you see how they stack up against one another. Bookmark it so you can compare any new schools that might interest you.

Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California

The following schools top our list of the Best “Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California”.

Top 3 Most Focused Master’s Degree Colleges for Urban Studies in California

1

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California

#4 overall quality in California

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend University of Southern California. It ranked #1 on our 2023 Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California list. USC is a large school located in Los Angeles, California that handed out 77 masters’s urban studies degrees in 2020-2021.

Since the school has a undergrad student-to-faculty ratio of 9 to 1, those pursuing a degree will have more opportunities to interact with their professors. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 91%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. 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 Urban Studies Report

2

University of San Francisco
San Francisco, California

#20 overall quality in California

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of San Francisco. The school came in at #2 for the Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California. University of San Francisco is a fairly large private not-for-profit school situated in San Francisco, California. It awarded 7 masters’s urban studies degrees in 2020-2021.

The low undergrad student loan default rate of 1.5% 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%.

Read more about Urban Studies at USFCA

3

San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, California

Out of the 3 schools in the Schools for a Master’s Highly Focused on Urban Studies Major in California that were part of this year’s ranking, San Francisco Art Institute landed the #3 spot on the list. SFAI is a small school located in San Francisco, California that handed out 0 masters’s urban studies degrees in 2020-2021.

With a undergrad student-to-faculty ratio of 3 to 1, it’s easy to see that the school is committed to helping their undergraduates succeed.

Read more about Urban Studies at SFAI

• Most Focused Master’s Degree Colleges for Urban Studies in the Far Western US Region
• Most Focused Master’s Degree Colleges for Urban Studies

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

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate 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 Andrew Bossi.