Guide
How the Orange County list is drawn
There is no county field in the college file. This page lists California campuses whose city is on an Orange County city list, including Irvine, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Orange, Costa Mesa, and the other cities in that set. A campus is here because of that city name.
Chapman University is in the city of Orange, so it qualifies. UC Irvine qualifies because its city is Irvine. The table sorts by undergraduate enrollment. A larger campus appears before a smaller one. That order is not a quality ranking.
- Schools
- 58
- States
- 1
- California
- Median admit rate
- 65%
- 13 report a rate
- Median earnings
- $45,484
- 10 years after entry
City name, state California
The match requires the state to be California and the city to be one of the Orange County cities in the allowlist. Both parts matter. A college in an Orange city in another state is not in this county and does not belong here.
The allowlist is how the page stands in for a county. It includes the large cities and many smaller ones, from Huntington Beach and Newport Beach to Mission Viejo, Aliso Viejo, and Rancho Santa Margarita. If the Scorecard city string is not on the list, the campus stays off.
Nearby counties stay off
Los Angeles County campuses stay off, even when they are a short drive from the county line. Long Beach is not on this list. Neither is a campus in Riverside or San Diego County. Distance is not the rule. The city string is.
A college that markets itself to Orange County students, or that holds classes in the county under a different city name, stays off when the Scorecard city does not match. This page does not geocode an address to fix a city name.
Enrollment order
Sorting by undergraduate enrollment puts the biggest campuses first. UC Irvine and the larger community colleges and Cal State Fullerton sit toward the top for that reason. A small specialized campus is still a full member of the list. It is just further down.
Use the nursing page when you want Orange County campuses that report a registered-nursing program. That list is shorter. A county campus with no such program remains on this page only.
Why this is not a radius
A radius around a downtown point would pull in campuses from neighboring counties and would drop a campus on the far side of this county. The city list does the opposite trade. It stays inside the named cities and accepts that a mismatched city string can miss a campus.
City lists for the rest of the country live on the colleges-near pages, which use a 50-mile distance from downtown. This category stays a county-style list because Orange County is a place readers ask for by name.
Where the schools are
Every school on this list is in California. A campus in another state stays off, even when the system or the brand reaches further.
Who runs them
By reported control, 30 are private for-profit, 16 are private nonprofit, and 12 are public. A blank control stays out of that split.
Predominant degree is the credential the campus awards most often. On this list it is a certificate at 26 schools, a bachelor's degree at 16 schools, an associate degree at 11 schools, and a graduate degree at 5 schools. A campus can still award other credentials.
How large they are
The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are California State University-Fullerton in Fullerton, California, with 38,546 undergraduates, University of California-Irvine in Irvine, California, with 30,197 undergraduates, Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California, with 22,485 undergraduates, Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, with 17,684 undergraduates, and Fullerton College in Fullerton, California, with 17,121 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.
5 schools do not report an undergraduate enrollment. Those campuses stay off the size order. A blank is not zero.
Admission
13 of 58 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 65%. Schools with no reported rate stay out of the median. A missing rate is not an open door, and it is not a closed one.
The lowest reported admission rates on this list are Stanbridge University in Irvine, California, at 10%, University of California-Irvine in Irvine, California, at 29%, and Hope International University in Fullerton, California, at 33%. A lower rate is harder entry. It is not a score for the school.
The highest reported admission rates on this list are Concorde Career College-Garden Grove in Garden Grove, California, at 97%, Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California, at 94%, and California State University-Fullerton in Fullerton, California, at 91%.
What they charge
Among 12 public colleges that report an in-state sticker price, the median is $1,272. Among 17 private colleges that report a sticker price, the median is $20,515. 29 other private colleges on the list do not report one.
Sticker price is not net price. Grants, waivers, and a service commitment can move the bill by a wide margin. Open a school for the net-price figures.
Earnings and graduation
Among 46 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $45,484. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are West Coast University-Anaheim-Orange County in Anaheim, California, at $102,672, University of California-Irvine in Irvine, California, at $80,735, and Chapman University in Orange, California, at $70,070.
Among 47 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 64%. A blank rate is left out. It is not treated as zero.
Athletics in this file
2 report NCAA Division I athletics. A blank athletics field means this file has no division for that campus. It does not prove the campus has no team.
Also on other lists
Some of these schools also meet the rule for another list on this site. The overlap is a second flag or a second classification. It is not a second ranking.
13 are also on Hispanic-serving institutions.
How these figures work
Admission rate, enrollment, sticker price, earnings, and graduation rate all come from the College Scorecard. Earnings are the median 10 years after a student entered the school. Tuition for a public college is the in-state sticker price. Tuition for a private college is the published sticker price. None of these is net price after aid.
A blank field stays blank. This page does not turn a blank admission rate into an open door, a blank fee into a free application, or a blank earnings figure into zero. The table above is membership under the rule in this guide. Sort order is not a quality ranking.