California State University, California State University is the largest public institution of higher education in the United States, consisting of 23 campuses and 8 research and education centers. It enrolls about 460,000 students each year, offers programs in all subject areas, and annually awards about half of all bachelor’s degrees in California, about a third of master’s degrees and only about 2% of doctoral degrees.
Because of its limited number of graduate programs and research output, it is not ranked globally, and only a handful of its campuses, which can confer PhD degrees, appear on US News’ national rankings. These campuses are San Diego State, Fresno State, San Francisco State and Cal State Fullerton.
The University of California, the University of California, has 10 campuses with a total of about 250,000 students. It is one of the most powerful public universities in the U.S., offering programs in all subject areas at all levels of higher education, from undergraduate to graduate.
The school is active in research: 62 Nobel laureates have studied and worked within its walls since its inception. The University of California campuses participate in the world’s leading rankings individually and rank very well. In the 2016/17 QS rankings, for example, three campuses – UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego – ranked in the #28-40 range, another, UC Davis, was in the top 100, and 4 others – UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz – were in the top 300.