4+ Year 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 within the nation's top 50 universities, according to the 2021 U.S. News National University Rankings:

- California Institute of Technology (ranked #9, tied with Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Duke; second in California only to #6 Stanford)
- University of California, Los Angeles (ranked #20)
- University of Southern California (ranked #24, tied with U. Michigan-Ann Arbor)
- Pepperdine University (ranked #49, tied with Lehigh, Northeastern, U. Miami)

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 2021, 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 2019 from the National Center of Education Statistics
(2) Enrollment number for 2016
(3) Primarily a women’s college
(4) Year in which campus in West Hollywood established

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).

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).

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 University of California Los Angeles Campus, 1933. Photo by Airscapes Program, U.S. War Department, courtesy of the National Archives.

UCLA is the largest (per enrollment) of the University of California Campuses.

USC has the second largest enrollment of foreign students in the nation.