Overview of the California State University System: Facts, Admissions, and Rankings

hi everyone the california state university is one of three public higher education systems in california

along with the university of california system and the california community colleges

the csu consists of 23 campuses educating approximately 486 000 students and employing nearly 56 000

faculty and staff according to the 2021 csu factbook that along with all the other sources used in

this video will be linked in the description so here are the 23 csu campuses on the map and it stretches 800

miles from humboldt state in the north to san diego state in the south and here are some fun facts according to

the 2021 csu factbook nearly half of the state's bachelor degrees are awarded by the csu system

there are 3.9 million living alumni and counting one in 10 employees in california is a

csu graduate and 129 000 degrees are conferred annually diving deeper into the last point in the

2019-2020 year 85 of those degrees were bachelor degrees about 14 and a half percent were

master degrees and about half a percent were doctoral degrees the next topic of this video is

going to be enrollment students planning to enter the csu can apply through their online application

tool at calstate.edu dash apply there's important information that you should review including admission and

testing requirements for example there's a temporary act and sat suspension for admissions until the

spring of 2023. furthermore the freshman admission requirements include specific high

school courses the grades in those courses and graduation from high school

as for transfers and graduate students it is stated that the majority of transfer students enters upper division

transfers and must complete at least 60 semester or 90 unit and require ge before transferring

for graduate studies a student must earn a baccalaureate degree from a credit institution with at least a 2.5 gpa and

be in good academic standing and at the time of this recording the csu is looking to implement covert

vaccinations effector for fall 2021 term or upon full fda approval of the vaccine now going over a few statistics from the

2021 csu factbook here are the past six year university wild enrollment numbers

you can see a steady and somewhat consistent increase every year and this is the enrollment by campus for

the fall of 2020. it shouldn't come as a surprise that the universities with the highest enrollment numbers include the

likes of fullerton long beach northridge and san diego as they are some of the more well-known

schools and in populated regions consequently maritime channel islands and monterey bay are among those with

the lowest enrollments to break down the enrollment numbers as a whole a little bit more first is the

grade distribution for undergraduates about 16 of csu students are freshmen

13 are sophomore 26 or junior and 34 are seniors for ethnicities the three largest components are hispanic

at just under 45 percent white at about 22 percent and asian pacific islanders at about 16

percent and lastly the male to female ratio is about a 42 and a half percent to 75.5

the gender composition for the csus is shown here please keep in mind that this is for the 2011 year and it could be

very different a decade later however from the snapshot the one big difference is the maritime where women

only make up about 14 of their student body the next part of this video is going to be admissions

more specifically the csu campuses freshman admission profiles for the fall 2018

and here it is please feel free to pause this video to view the specific colleges of your liking

for the interesting time i will not be going over every individual line however i would like to point out a few

things the first thing is that bakersfield had a 100 admit rate i didn't know that until i saw this but

i thought it was very interesting to note the average weighted gpa for csu

freshman was 3.38 the average admit rate was just under 60 and the average sat and a ct scores were

1058 and 22 respectively i would say that these averages should only be used as a reference and it does

not guarantee admissions if you were to meet these numbers for example if you would apply to more

selective schools like either of the cal polys or san diego state it would be safe to assume that you

would need higher numbers to stand out and be competitive okay so next is the cost breakdown and

is split into three sections living with parents living on campus housing and living off campus

and this is the table for the 2021-2022 estimated undergraduate cost of attendance

you can see that living at home or with parents is considerably cheaper based off of these estimates

again please feel free to pause this video to look at your college or colleges of your choosing because these

estimates vary i would like to point out that the one college missing from the snapshot is

maritime and that is because there are added expenses which include uniforms

mandatory medical insurance and orientation usually in these types of videos i tend

to create tier lists based off a metric but for this video i would just include the rankings from different publications

with no tier lists and i'll explain later as to why that is the first rankings i'll use is the us

news and world report college rankings for 2021 and here are the screenshots for the

regional universities west and top public school rankings to my recollection only san diego state

is admitted because they are ranked nationally along with the other schools including the uc campuses

from this one source you're definitely able to create a tier list but let's add in another publication for the sake of

completeness and for this video i'm going to include the money magazine 2020 rankings for

best public colleges and this is where it starts to get a little bit blurry you can see whereas

cal poly slo ranked first in the us news and world report but now it's in the middle for money magazine

however there are a few consistencies including cal poly pomona san jose state long beach state and fullerton as they

remain near the top whereas dominguez hills and east bay remain near the lower end of the rankings compared to their

counterparts at this time i would like to note that these rankings are subjective and vary

depending on major and personal preference for example here are a few major base

rankings for money magazine and lastly i'll include the princeton review best in the west college rankings

in 2020. to conclude i think the rankings make it a bit difficult to say which college

belongs in which tier you can certainly create one from a general perspective if you were to look

at one or a few publications but i'll leave that up to you if you want to share your tier list please feel

free to leave that in the comments i would love to read some of your thoughts last but not least is a fairly short and

simple pros and cons list for the csu system as a whole again and i need to emphasize that these

vary depending on the college the first pro is the value i think the csu is a great bang for your buck

according to the csu website and i quote the csu is the nation's largest and most diverse public four-year university

system opening the door to educational opportunities for nearly half a million

students thanks to affordable tuition and a university-wide focus on achievement

students are earning more than 125 000 high quality degrees every year and to emphasize the

affordable tuition aspects the csu mandatory tuition excluding campus fees is 5742

and to bring that into perspective the uc tuition is 14 100 which is more than double almost

triple the second pros is less debt in the 2016 to 2017 academic year

less than half of csu baccalaureate recipients were in debt while the national average was 65

csu students were also about 27 below the state average for student debt according to a study project in 2018.

furthermore more than 84 percent of csu students receive some form of financial aid

the third thing is the student success improvements through the graduation initiative at 2025.

the graduation initiative is the csu's ambitious initiative to increase graduation rates for all csu students

while eliminating opportunity and achievement gaps for example their intentions are to raise first-time

student graduation rates for the four-year and six-year students to 40 and 70 percent the last pro is

that the csu system is the engine for social mobility according to chancellor timothy p white

the csu is key to california's brightest and most hopeful future opening the door to educational

opportunities for all and transforming the lives of students and their families in a learning environment enriched by

the diverse strengths of our students we create leaders who will bring new vision and strengths to their

communities to california and indeed to our nation in the world

moving over to the cons the first thing is that although the csus earned high marks

they aren't quite on the same level as some of the other universities in california and in the nation

obviously you can make an argument for certain cases like engineering at the cal poly's

or business in san jose but again this is just generally speaking and i think that's okay for the price

that you're paying is not the end of the world you can still make meaningful connections

receive a very high quality education and be successful the second thing is the lower graduation

rates the 2020 graduation rates for four year and six years csu students are 31 and 62 respectively to make a comparison

and for perspective the most recent uc statistics show that their overall graduation rates for

four-year and six-year students are 68 and 86 respectively there's room to speculate why they're such a huge

discrepancy but there is a very large gap nonetheless and is very interesting to note

and that wraps up the posing cause section and this video but i hope that was helpful

normally i would go over each university individually but going over 23 campuses would have extended this video by

a lot but to be fair if you want to see that part please just let me know in the comments and i'll make it a part two

but anyways thank you so much for watching and i'll be catching you all next time peace