[Quixote]

Originally Posted by craigs

I'll start with the same metric Steely Dan used for his post. Per USNWR, these are the California schools that rank in the top 200 national universities:

#3. Stanford University, Palo Alto
#9. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
#20. University of California, Los Angeles (tie)
#20. University of California, Berkeley (tie)
#25. University of Southern California, Los Angeles
#32. University of California, Santa Barbara
#34. University of California, Irvine (tie)
#34. University of California, San Diego (tie)
#38. University of California, Davis
#55. Pepperdine University, Malibu (tie)
#55. Santa Clara University, Santa Clara (tie)
#77. Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
#83. University of California, Santa Cruz
#89. University of California, Riverside
#97. University of California, Merced (tie)
#97. University of San Diego (tie)
#105. University of San Francisco
#121. Chapman University, Orange
#137. California State University, Long Beach
#151. San Diego State University, San Diego (tie)
#151. University of La Verne, La Verne (tie)
#151. University of the Pacific, Stockton (tie)
#166. California State University, Fullerton
#194. Biola University, La Mirada (tie)
#194. California State University, San Bernardino (tie)

CA's higher education system is really unmatched. You can transfer from a community college to a shit ton of high- and good-quality schools offering some of the best graduate programs (top 10) in a particular field (e.g. UCI for Education, UCSD for International Politics, UC Davis for Developmental Psychology, CSU Fullerton for Nursing-Anesthesia, etc.). Ivy League- or tier 1B-level education/training for a fraction of the cost.