Four-Year-Plus Colleges & Universities*
Los Angeles County

Enrollment, Degrees, Type, Year Founded, Location

Beckman Institute at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Photo by Canon_vs_nikon, Wikimedia Commons.

Los Angeles County boasts four universities among the nation's top 50, according to the 2022 U.S. News National University Rankings:

- California Institute of Technology (ranked #9, tied with Duke and Johns Hopkins; second in California only to #6 Stanford)
- University of California, Los Angeles (ranked #20)
- University of Southern California (ranked #27)
- Pepperdine University (ranked #49, tied with Lehigh, Northeastern, Ohio State, Purdue-West Lafayette, and Villanova)

Also see:
-- Tuition for Four-Year Colleges & Universities in Los Angeles County
-- Community Colleges & Private 2-Year Colleges in Los Angeles County

* Listed institutions, as of 2022, are accredited by a regional accreditation association, such as the Western Association of Schools & Colleges (WASC), or other similar body.
N/A Information not available
(1) Except where otherwise noted, enrollment numbers are for 2021-2022 from the National Center of Education Statistics
(2) Enrollment numbers are for 2022 from UnivStats
(3) Primarily a women’s college
(4) Year in which campus in West Hollywood established

Marymount California University, once a Catholic two-year college, founded in 1932, that later expanded into a four-year college, closed its doors in April 2022. The college found its enrollment dropping and could no longer sustain its programs. The campus in Rancho Palos Verdes was purchased, shortly after its closing, by UCLA to be operated as a satellite campus of that university.

The University of Southern California is a private research university of international distinction, and as such, the oldest in the Western United States. The university attracts students from all 50 states and 107 other countries.

California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the help of Walt and Roy Disney and Lulu May Von Hagen. It merged the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (founded 1883) and Chouinard Art Institute (founded 1921).

Touro College Los Angeles is the only regionally-accredited Orthodox Jewish college in the West Coast.

The California Graduate Institute merged with The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 2008. The California Graduate Institute was the first independent graduate school of psychology in the nation, founded in 1968.

Whittier College was founded in 1887 by members of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Cleveland Chiropractic College Los Angeles, founded in 1911, closed in 2011.

UCLA is the only campus among the nation's top 10 research universities that was established in the 20th century.

Aerial View of UCLA campus, looking northwest, 1930s. Sunset Boulevard curves in upper part of image. Photo from UCLA Archive.
Click on image for larger image.

UCLA has the largest student enrollment of the University of California Campuses. Source: University of California.

In 2021, USC enrolled 14,992 foreign students - the fourth largest enrollment of foreign students at any U.S. institution of higher learning. Locally, UCLA followed with 10,273 foreign students. Source: Open Doors Data.