Cabrillo College has been ranked the best community college in California in a study released by marketing company SmartAsset. The same study ranked Cabrillo 37th overall in the United States.
The study compared 616 two-year colleges that offer associate degrees and have at least 500 full-time students and ranked them based on retention rates, student-to-faculty ratios and tuition and fees. The study was based upon publicly available data from 2022-23.
“This ranking provides a tangible reference for what I’ve heard anecdotally since arriving at Cabrillo seven years ago, that Cabrillo is the best community college in the state,” said Matt Wetstein, superintendent and president at Cabrillo College. “I’ve had people tell me their best professors were at Cabrillo … even better than teachers they had at some of the highest-rated universities in the world.”
Ranked first in California with a full-time student retention rate of 74% and a student-to-faculty ratio of 16-to-1, Cabrillo College is also highly affordable, with full-time, in-state tuition and fees costing $1,262. A federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution with locations in Aptos and Watsonville, approximately half of Cabrillo’s students are Latino.
Collectively, California community colleges scored well in the study’s “least expensive” ranking, taking the top 50 spots for least expensive schools, with tuition and fees costing less than $1,500 per year.
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