In 1996 California passed Proposition 209 banning affirmative action in the State's public schools. The results! Blacks and minorities moved down a notch in the schools they chose among the Public State colleges, were placed near the middle of their academic class, and performed much much better with great results.
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The Top Colleges for Helping Students Move Up the Socioeconomic Ladder
California schools lead the way, with 15 of the top 20 schools in the 2025 Wall Street Journal/College Pulse rankings
By Tom Corrigan
Sept. 19, 2024 10:00 am ET
The University of California, Merced, heads 37 public colleges in the top 50 for boosting students’ social mobility, in the WSJ/College Pulse rankings. Photo: Getty Images
California leads all states in providing social mobility to its college students, according to the 2025 Wall Street Journal/College Pulse rankings.
Fifteen of the 20 schools doing the most to help college students climb up the socioeconomic ladder are in California, including all of the top five. The University of California, Merced, which came in at No. 18 in the overall ranking for the best colleges, took the top spot, followed by four California State University campuses: Stanislaus, San Bernardino, Fresno and Los Angeles.
These colleges and others at the top of the social-mobility ranking take in high proportions of low-income students and excel at improving those students’ graduation rates and their salaries later in life.
“It’s a true point of pride for us,” says Brian O’Bruba, interim vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of California, Merced, where 63% of last year’s incoming class were first-generation college students.
Public colleges dominate the upper tier of the social-mobility ranking. Of the top 50 colleges for social mobility, 37 are public. Fresno Pacific University, Albion College and the University of La Verne are the only private colleges in the top 20.
(You can see our full Social Mobility ranking, as well as our overall ranking of the best colleges in the U.S., with links to rankings focused on the best values and student experiences and salaries, here, along with the methodology behind them all.)
Two key questions
The Journal, working with data scientists at Statista, devised its ranking of the colleges contributing the most to social mobility using research by the Third Way policy-research think tank and the Brookings Institution. Two key questions are at the heart of the analysis: How much does a college improve its students’ chances of graduating on time? And how much will it improve the salaries those students earn after they graduate?
The social-mobility ranking further considers the proportion of students who receive Pell Grants at each college, rewarding colleges that take in a high number of students from families with lower incomes. Pell Grants are federal education grants earmarked for students who have exceptional financial need.
At California State University, Fresno, where nearly 60% of students receive Pell Grants, tutoring is built into classes, like some chemistry courses, that the school knows are especially difficult for students to pass.
“We have done mining of data that has given us next steps on where students are getting stumped,” says Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval.
Jiménez-Sandoval says getting his students through the most difficult classes helps them to feel they belong at the school and motivates them through the rest of their college years.
“The students we receive at Fresno State come from humble backgrounds,” he says. “But they are really hard workers.”
Tomás D. Morales, president of California State University, San Bernardino, says targeted academic-support services such as advising and mentoring are critical to helping students get over the finish line with their degrees. “Many of our students have no one at home to talk to about their collegiate journey,” he says.
Top 10 Colleges for Social Mobility
Social Mobility Rank
College
Social Mobility Score
1 University of California, Merced 86.8
2 California State University, Stanislaus 82.1
3 California State University, San Bernardino 81.2
4 California State University, Fresno 80.4
5 California State University, Los Angeles 78.5
6 Florida International University 78.2
7 California State University, Long Beach 77
8 Baruch College, CUNY 76.8
9 California State University, Northridge 76
10 California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 75.8
Source: WSJ/College Pulse 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S. ranking
Keeping prices low
Colleges that do well in the social-mobility ranking stay accessible to low-income students by keeping tuition costs low. The net price for No. 8-ranked Baruch College, CUNY, for the 2021-22 academic year was $3,644, the fourth-lowest of all 500 schools in our rankings.
Net price is the average annual overall cost of attending the college for students who receive federal financial aid, including tuition and fees, room and board, and books and supplies, taking into account any grants and scholarships. Baruch is one of only six schools in the ranking with an average net price under $5,000.
To keep up with rising costs, the California State University Board of Trustees recently approved tuition increases at its 23 campuses, saying the system needs new revenue from both tuition increases and the state of California to balance its operating budget.
Tuition rates for the CSU system’s 450,000 students are set to rise 6% annually for five academic years, starting this fall. Many students won’t be affected, because their tuition is fully covered by grants or waivers.
Tuition increases and recent budget cuts endanger California’s ability to continue to serve low-income students and to contribute to social mobility, according to Morales. “There’s no doubt that the current investment in higher education, given the state’s financial situation, is a threat to our mission,” he says.
Tom Corrigan is a Wall Street Journal reporter in New York. He can be reached at tom.corrigan@wsj.com.
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