The first step to higher education in California is community colleges, which are institutions that offer vocational training or the first two years of a bachelor’s degree.
There are 113 community colleges in California, enrolling more than 1.7 million students each year. The best of them are guaranteed spots at California’s public universities if they want to continue their education and earn a bachelor’s degree. This system is called transfer – transferring from one institution to another. International students can also attend community colleges, which is a good way to lower tuition.
Bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees are available to U.S. and international students at public and private colleges and universities in California. Many of them have excellent academic and scholarly reputations and rank high in the world’s top rankings.
The fact that nearly 700,000 students attend California’s two largest public universities alone each year speaks volumes about the scale of California higher education.