About three in five Californians enroll in college just after high school.

• Recent data show that just over 62% of the 435,000 students who graduated from high school in spring 2020 enrolled in college within 12 months, down from a recent peak of 67% in 2017–18.
• Enrollment rates are below average for low-income (54%) and English Learner students (42%). Just over half (55%) of Black and Latino graduates enrolled in college, compared to 68% of white students and 86% of Asian students. Women (nearly 68%) are significantly more likely to enroll than men (57%).
• College enrollment rates were highest among graduates from the Bay Area (72%), and lowest in the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley (53%). Southern California (67%), the Central Coast (also 67%), and the far north (59%) were close to the statewide average.

California’s community colleges are a key entry point to higher education.

• High school graduates are more likely to go to the California Community Colleges (CCC) than to enroll in the four-year public systems: 32% enroll in a CCC, while 12% go to California State University (CSU) and 8% go to the University of California (UC).
• CCC enrollment rates have fallen in recent years—they are down about 6 percentage points from a 2015 peak. Enrollment at the four-year universities has been relatively stable, increasing by 2.1 percentage points at UC and declining by 0.5 at CSU.
• Just over 3% of students enroll at private colleges and universities in California, while almost 8% leave the state to attend postsecondary institutions elsewhere in the US.

Hundreds of thousands of students apply to UC and CSU each year.

• UC received 211,000 freshman applications for fall 2022, while CSU saw 195,000. CSU applications declined at the onset of the pandemic but have risen by over 22,000 since fall 2020.
• UC accepted 27% of applicants in 2022; acceptance rates varied widely across campuses—from 9% at UCLA and 11% at UC Berkeley to nearly 90% at UC Merced.
• Acceptance rates also vary widely across CSU campuses: 2022 rates were lowest at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (30%), San Diego State University (39%), and Long Beach State University (40%), while the other 20 schools in the system accepted an average of 86% of applicants.

Community college transfers make up significant shares of UC and CSU enrollment.

• Transfers from community colleges to four-year universities play an outsized role in California, compared to other states. In fall 2022, students transferring from community colleges made up 29% of new enrollees at UC and 42% of new enrollees at CSU.
• A majority of new enrollees at UC (58%) and CSU (51%) graduated from California public high schools. Students from private high schools in the state made up 5.2% of new UC enrollment and 3.4% at CSU.
• Students from other US states made up 2.7% of new CSU enrollment and 3.9% at UC in 2022. International students are more likely to go to UC than CSU: in 2022, 3.7% of new UC students came from other countries, compared to less than 1% at CSU.

The state and its higher education institutions are working to expand college access.

• The state is expanding structured dual enrollment programs, which enable high school students to gain valuable experience by taking—and earning credit for—community college courses.
• Initiatives such as Guided Pathways and the Golden State Pathways Program (GSPP) are designed to streamline transitions from high school to higher education and beyond.
• Associate Degrees for Transfer (ADTs) at CSU and the Transfer Admissions Guarantee (TAG) program at most UC campuses play a key role in efforts to increase transfer rates from community colleges and boost the number of students earning bachelor’s degrees.