Education is a long journey on a road with many exits.

In This Lesson

What is California’s Master Plan for Higher Education?

Who goes to college in California, and who finishes?

What is dual enrollment?

How do college transfers work in California?

How many students are enrolled in private colleges in California?

How does adult education work in California?

What is the GED? How many take it? How many pass?

What is the economic impact of higher education?

What college scholarships are available in California?

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★ Discussion Guide

We hope that all students persist through high school, but many do not. We hope that many go on to college, but many do not. We hope those who begin college will finish, but, again, many do not.

California has a long and well-respected history of providing its residents with affordable, lifelong access to postsecondary education. The largest and most visible investment is a robust public system of colleges and universities.

This lesson explains California’s three-part college system. It also digs into available data about how well the system works, and for which students it tends to work best. California’s Cradle-to-Career data system (C2C) remains incomplete, but as of 2026, the parts that collect historical data about public college enrollment and completion work well. On current trends, which kids will go to college? Which will finish, which will be left behind, and what happens then?

California’s three-part college system

Let’s start with the big picture: Education beyond high school is called higher education or tertiary education. California's public system of higher education has three parts, formally defined in 1960 in the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education.

Let's look at the three big parts of the system first.

Big: The University of California (UC) system is the state’s primary academic research institution. High school graduates in the top 9% of their school and/or the top 9% of the state are guaranteed admission somewhere in the UC system, but individual UC campuses make their own independent admission decisions. If a guaranteed student isn’t admitted to any campus they selected, UC can offer a place at another campus with available capacity.

Qualified students at California public community colleges can also gain admission as transfer students. In 2025 the UC system served about 300,000 students across ten campuses.

• Application deadlines
• UC Acceptance Rates by High School | UC Admissions Data

Bigger: The California State University (CSU) system serves about 475,000 students across 22 campuses as of 2026. It offers both undergraduate and graduate education, including a limited number of doctorate degrees issued jointly with the University of California. Admission to the CSU is available to the top one-third (33.3%) of public high school graduates and all qualified community college transfer students. Individual campuses make admission decisions, generally with a preference for serving nearby communities.

Starting in fall of 2027, seventeen colleges in the CSU system will admit qualified students automatically — no application required, just register. To qualify, students must have satisfied the A-G requirement courses. CSU campuses near maximum enrollment are not participating in the program.

• Application deadlines
• Cal State acceptance rates for every California high school

Biggest: The California Community Colleges (CCC) is America’s largest system of higher education. The 116 campuses are organized into 72 districts that together serve 2.2 million students of all ages. Roughly a third of California high school graduates enroll in a community college soon after high school, joining a system that also serves large numbers of working adults and older students. Students who attend community colleges can earn an associate degree, complete a training or certificate program, or prepare to transfer to a four-year university.

As of 2026, the community college system also offers 30 baccalaureate degree programs that meet local workforce needs, such as dental hygiene and biomanufacturing. You can find a list of the programs and the campus offerings here.

It is an open-enrollment system — that is, it accepts all applicants who are high school graduates, as well as any other adults who can benefit from attendance. Many high school students also attend classes in community college through systems known as dual enrollment. More about that below. First, let’s look at the results.

• Community college applications

Who goes to college in California, and who finishes?

The "Cradle to career" data system isn't cradle to career

California calls its education data system a "cradle to career" system (C2C). Unfortunately, it isn't, yet.

Like other states, California has made a lot of progress in monitoring patterns of success within individual parts of the education system, but Califoria's system does not yet connect the parts end-to-end in a way that can show weaknesses. For example, public college success metrics are usually expressed as a percentage of public high school graduates. This approach is understandable — college systems want to focus on the part of the educational journey that is under their control. As a measure of systemic success, however, it ignores achievement gaps that colleges inherit from high schools.

For example, based on the most recent data available as of this writing in September 2026, for every 100 students who enter 9th grade in California, about 88.7 finish high school within five years. Girls tend to complete high school at a rate 3.2 percentage points higher than boys. Viewed this way, the difference sounds small. Look instead at the students who do not earn a diploma within five years: males are about a third more likely than females to be among them.

The differences are even more significant when you combine gender patterns with race and ethnicity. Asian female students graduate high school at a rate 17% higher than Black male students. Viewed the other way around, Black male students in California fail to earn a high school diploma within five years at a rate about three times greater than Asian female students.

By treating graduation from high school as the starting line, California’s C2C system ignores these differences. In effect, as of this time it ignores the cradle. It's a tassel-to-career system.

As this 2026 post from the Public Policy Institute of California makes clear, the C2C system shows huge differences in the rates at which different groups of students enroll in college after graduating high school.

Again, the chart above treats college enrollment as the starting line, ignoring the different rates at which students graduate from high school. Here’s a summary that takes high school completion into account:

To visually present the pattern of college-going among high school graduates, California’s Cradle to Career system can produce a customizable visual diagram like the one below for any school district, given enough students in the sample to support reporting.

As a whole, female students outperform male ones in college-going statistics, but as of this writing in 2026, the C2C reports and diagrams do not show differences associated with gender in combination with other factors like race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status. The information exists but is not published.

Before the C2C system existed, the Ed100 team took a solid crack at estimating the big picture in 2022, including fall-off at both high school graduation and college completion. This view differs a bit from the C2C approach: instead of modeling what happened in the past for a full cohort, it modeled a synthetic forward-looking cohort by applying fall-off rates based on recent results.

What is dual enrollment?

High school students in California can take college classes at public community colleges, a practice known as dual enrollment.

From a small start in 2016, dual enrollment systems expanded to serve more than 327,000 K–12 students in 2024–25 according to the 2026 report of the Chancellor of the California Community College system (CCC). That is equivalent to roughly one student for every six students enrolled in grades 9–12 statewide. Many dual-enrolled students (also known as special admit students) take more than one college-level course.

Dual-enrollment courses are generally taught by college professors, in person, usually at a high school campus. Students who take dual-enrollment courses simultaneously earn credit for high school and college. A tiny percentage of courses are dual-enrolled with four-year institutions.

College districts and K-12 districts operate separately from one another, so dual enrollment programs require ongoing coordination, including data exchange about students, courses and credits. It's not simple, and it took years of wrangling for advocates to find a bipartisan consensus that could put funding for it into the budget. Ironically, both public TK-12 and public community college are funded under Prop. 98.

Transfers from community college

Historically, each college in California's three-tiered system operated very separately, which made it very difficult to transfer from one school to another — especially when moving between layers of the system. In 2015 the CSU system took the lead in defining explicit pathways for transfers from community college. The UC system clarified its transfer processes and requirements in 2018. Each course is generically identified through C-ID, and in 2025 campuses began implementing common course numbering for major courses. The ASSIST system uses C-ID to help students determine whether their courses will count if they transfer.

More extensive information about these public institutions, the students they serve, and issues they face is available in a series of concise briefs from The Campaign for College Opportunity.

Private colleges

Private colleges in California also play a significant role, serving some 300,000 students separately from the public system. The largest, University of Southern California (USC), serves more than 46,000 students.

Many private colleges are quite expensive. The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) tracks data about student loans, oversees lenders, and provides general advice.

Adult Education programs in California

California’s adult education program (CAEP) helps people develop skills they want or need.

Decades ago, when California passed its Master Plan for higher education, the state also provided significant funding for public high schools and community colleges to provide adult education classes of various sorts, not necessarily tied to the completion of a degree or certificate. These programs were gutted in the Great Recession and funding for them has never recovered. As of 2024 there were 71 regional adult education consortia with over 325 K–12 districts and close to 100 community colleges serving adults statewide. Funding is tied to specific objectives.

Today, though funding for adult education has been greatly reduced, it is still important in many communities. Over a third of those enrolled in adult education are studying English as a second language. California spends roughly $1.4 billion a year on its core adult-education system. The 2026–27 budget provides $693 million through the California Adult Education Program, while community colleges receive roughly another $580 million for noncredit adult instruction through their regular funding formula. About $100 million in federal adult-education funding supplements these state funds.

One important goal of California’s adult education system is to give a second chance to adults who have not graduated from high school. Adult schools and community colleges offer classes to prepare students for the GED® and HiSET®, California’s two approved high school equivalency exams. In 2024–25, more than 18,450 adult learners in California’s federally reported adult education programs earned either a high school diploma or a high school equivalency certificate.

Economic impact of California’s public colleges

In aggregate, expenditures associated with higher education in California typically account for roughly 2% of the state economy, somewhat smaller than the direct costs of TK-12, about 3.5%. As discussed in Ed100 Lesson 1.3, the long-term impact of this spending is subject to interpretive quibbles, but no one seriously doubts that education drives economic well-being over a long timeframe. That's part of why every developed country spends on it.

Many states and nations have taken inspiration from California’s college system. At a relatively low cost, the system raises graduates’ earnings, powering additional tax revenue over time through higher productivity, research, innovation and economic growth. With campuses intentionally spread throughout the state, students have strong access to learning opportunities.

Each of the three layers of the system periodically reports on the economic outcomes of its work. (See reports from UC, CSU, and CCC.) The Institute of Higher Education Policy (IHEP) also periodically evaluates the economic impact of higher education, including private colleges.

College scholarships

College scholarships are a complex element of college affordability. According to College Help Guide, as of 2026 there are more than 300 scholarship programs in California, ranging from state-funded Cal Grants to industry-specific awards. Regional scholarships often have rolling deadlines with larger awards for early applicants. Some community colleges have exclusive scholarships to support transfers.

Updated September 2026.