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Key Takeaways
Best data science degree programs: UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of California-Irvine
Ranked by graduation rates, program outcomes, and institutional quality
Tuition ranges from $1,104 to $66,640/year
De Anza College offers the most affordable option at $1,395/yr
Data Science degree programs available: 73 associate's, 39 master's, 13 doctoral in California
From community college pathways to advanced research degrees
30 online data science degree programs in California
Flexible scheduling for working professionals
California community college transfer can save 40-60% on total degree costs
73 associate's programs provide transfer pathways to bachelor's degrees
Education Commission of the States
Major employers: Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix
Tech hubs in San Francisco and San Jose
Hakia Research 2026
Data Science degree programs near 230+ cities across California
Search by city to find programs within 200 miles of your location
Updated July 13, 2026
How we ranked California Data Science programs
We rank 180 accredited data science programs in California using IPEDS 2024 institutional data, BLS OEWS 2024 state salary data, and College Scorecard outcomes. A 4-factor weighted composite is normalized to a 0–100 score. Schools cannot pay for placement; rankings are produced algorithmically.
Are Data Science Degree Programs in California Worth It?
Source: BLS OEWS May 2024
Data Science Degree Rankings in California
Compare the top-ranked Data Science programs in California by degree level. Tuition, graduation rate, and Hakia Score for every accredited program.
Best Bachelor's Data Science Programs in California
Program Landscape
California ranks among the nation's top destinations for data science education, with 55 accredited bachelor's degree programs across 30 public and 25 private institutions. The highest-ranked programs are UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of California-Irvine, recognized for academic excellence, research opportunities, and strong industry connections.
Career Outcomes
Graduates from California data science programs earn a median salary of $123,905, 26% above the national average. The state's robust technology sector, anchored by the San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles metropolitan areas, provides abundant internship and employment opportunities with companies including Google, Apple, Meta.
Costs & Value
Tuition ranges from $5,742 to $66,640 annually, with an average of $26,595/yr. Top programs maintain graduation rates above 91%, with the highest reaching 100%. Many programs hold ABET accreditation, the gold standard for computing education, ensuring curriculum meets rigorous industry standards.
Curriculum & Specializations
Students can choose from specializations including software engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data science, and systems architecture. Strong industry partnerships provide access to co-op programs, capstone projects with real companies, and direct recruiting pipelines to California's leading technology employers. For students seeking data science degrees in California, these top-ranked data science schools offer the strongest combination of academic rigor and career preparation.
Saint Mary's College of California
California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt
Best Master's Data Science Programs in California
Program Landscape
California offers 39 master's degree programs in data science, designed for professionals seeking to advance into senior engineering, technical leadership, and specialized roles. The top programs, U of Southern California, U of California-San Diego, U of California-Irvine, combine advanced technical training with research opportunities and leadership development.
Career Outcomes
Master's graduates in California earn a median salary of $145,770, approximately 20-30% higher than bachelor's degree holders. The concentration of technology companies in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles creates strong demand for graduate-level talent, with Google, Apple, Meta actively recruiting from these programs.
Costs & Value
Program formats include traditional full-time study (typically 2 years), part-time options for working professionals (2-3 years), and accelerated tracks. Tuition averages $18,339/yr, with many employers offering tuition reimbursement for graduate education. Some programs offer thesis and non-thesis tracks, allowing students to focus on research or professional development based on their career goals.
Curriculum & Specializations
Curriculum covers advanced topics including machine learning, distributed systems, software architecture, and technical management. Many programs include practicum experiences, industry capstone projects, or consulting engagements that provide real-world application of advanced concepts. Among California's data science schools at the graduate level, these programs stand out for both academic quality and career outcomes.
University of California-San Diego
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of the Pacific
Best Doctoral Data Science Programs in California
Program Landscape
California is home to 13 doctoral programs in data science, preparing students for research positions, faculty appointments, and executive technical roles. Leading programs at U of Southern California, UC Berkeley, UCLA are recognized for cutting-edge research, strong faculty publications, and competitive funding packages.
Career Outcomes
Doctoral graduates command premium salaries, with California PhD holders earning a median of $182,213, reflecting the advanced expertise required for research and executive positions. The San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles region's research universities and corporate R&D centers provide extensive collaboration opportunities with industry leaders like Google, Apple, Meta.
Costs & Value
PhD programs typically require 4-6 years of full-time study, including coursework, qualifying examinations, and original dissertation research. Many programs offer full funding through teaching or research assistantships, covering tuition and providing stipends of $25,000–$40,000 annually.
Curriculum & Specializations
Research strengths across California programs include artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, systems, and theoretical computer science. For aspiring researchers pursuing data science degrees in California, graduates go on to careers as university faculty, industry research scientists, or technical executives, contributing to advances in technology that impact millions of users worldwide.
Data Science Degree Costs & Tuition in California
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Average in-state tuition | $12,508/year |
| Average out-of-state tuition | $31,270/year |
| Community college tuition | $3,127/year |
| 4-year savings for residents | $75,048 |
| 2+2 transfer pathway savings | $18,762 |
Source: IPEDS 2024
Financial Aid for California Data Science Students
Verdict: California data science students benefit from the same state aid stack as CS students, Cal Grant, UC Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan, Middle Class Scholarship. The DS-specific dimension is that UC Berkeley's Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS) is consistently ranked among the top US graduate DS programs and is online-only, making it one of the best US data science master's options for working professionals worldwide, with no residency requirement and the same MIDS faculty as Berkeley's other programs.
Cal Grant eligibility flows automatically from FAFSA, and the UC Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan covers full UC tuition for California families under $80,000 income. For undergraduate DS-track students at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Irvine, or UC Santa Cruz, this combination plus federal Pell can produce essentially-free DS-track bachelor's degrees for qualified Californians.
The MIDS program economics are worth specifically calling out.
UC Berkeley's Master of Information and Data Science is delivered fully online by Berkeley's School of Information (iSchool), costs roughly $80,000 total tuition (high but typical for top-tier US graduate DS programs), and produces graduates with peer outcomes to the iSchool's residential master's programs. Combined with employer tuition reimbursement (common at Big Tech, financial services, and large enterprises, typically $5,250-$10,500/year), MIDS becomes accessible to working professionals at meaningfully reduced out-of-pocket cost.
California Dream Act Application (CADAA) extends state-aid eligibility to undocumented California residents who can't use FAFSA. Stanford and other private California universities offer substantial institutional aid for admitted DS students. Federal Pell stacks on top of state aid. Industry-track scholarships from California-based DS employers (Google, Meta, Apple, Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Netflix data engineering) provide additional funding most students don't pursue. The DataKind, ACM SIGKDD, and INFORMS student-membership funding pathways also add layers most early-career DS students underutilize.
Data Science Degree ROI Calculator, California
Use our interactive ROI calculator to estimate your return on investment for a data science degree in California. Enter your expected tuition costs, financial aid, and career goals to see projected payback periods and lifetime earnings. The calculator uses current salary data from BLS and tuition data from IPEDS to provide accurate estimates.
Data Science Degree ROI Calculator
Estimate your return on investment for a data science degree
Leave blank to use average cost for selected program type
+1064%
Net gain divided by total investment. ROI above 200% is considered excellent for education investments.
$1,967,896
Your additional lifetime earnings with this degree vs. working without one, minus the total investment.
5 years
Years until your cumulative earnings exceed total investment. Shorter programs often break even faster due to lower opportunity cost.
$86,111
Your starting salary adjusted for local cost of living. This shows real purchasing power compared to a $100K national baseline.
Why does break-even change with program type? Your "total investment" includes both tuition AND opportunity cost (foregone earnings while in school). A 4-year full-time public university (in-state) means 4 years of not earning a salary ($140,000 in opportunity cost). Shorter full-time programs may have higher tuition but lower total investment because you return to the workforce sooner.
Detailed Breakdown
How we calculate your degree ROI using real salary data
Tuition plus opportunity cost (earnings you miss while in school)
Direct cost of the degree program
4 years × $35K/year foregone salary while studying full-time
Projected career earnings starting after graduation, with salary growth
What you'd earn working at $35K/year with 2% annual growth
Median salary for this role in your selected location (BLS 2024)
Your investment's compound annual growth rate (similar to stock market returns)
Data sources: BLS OEWS May 2024, IPEDS 2024. Calculations use median salaries, 3% discount rate, and assume salary growth declines from 6% to 2% over career. Individual results will vary. | Powered by Hakia.com
Data Science Salaries by Metro Area
Median annual salary in California metro areas
View data table
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| San Francisco | $160K |
| San Jose | $153K |
| Los Angeles | $146K |
| San Diego | $138K |
Source: BLS OEWS May 2024
Hakia.com
Top Employers Hiring Data Science Graduates in California
Find data science jobs in California. These major employers across California metro areas are actively hiring data science degree holders. Click employer names to view current job openings.
Data Science Jobs in Silicon Valley
CASilicon Valley remains the global center of tech innovation. Headquarters for Google, Apple, Meta, and thousands of startups.
Nearby cities: San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Menlo Park, Redwood City
Data Science Jobs in San Francisco
CASan Francisco is a major fintech and enterprise software hub. Salesforce Tower anchors a dense tech ecosystem.
Nearby cities: Oakland, Berkeley, Daly City, South San Francisco, San Mateo, Fremont
Data Science Jobs in Los Angeles
CALA has a diverse tech scene spanning entertainment tech, aerospace, and ecommerce. SpaceX and Snap are headquartered here.
Nearby cities: Santa Monica, Culver City, Burbank, Pasadena, Long Beach, Irvine, El Segundo
Data Science Jobs in San Diego
CASan Diego is a biotech and defense technology hub. Qualcomm is headquartered here alongside major military contractors.
Nearby cities: La Jolla, Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Oceanside, Escondido, El Cajon
California Tech Industry & Infrastructure
California concentrates roughly a third of all U.S. venture capital investment and houses the headquarters of every company in the top five U.S. tech market caps. For a CS graduate, that translates into denser-than-anywhere hiring pipelines — but it also means the supply of CS graduates is unusually large, and competition for entry-level roles at named employers is intense.
Bay Area
San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley
Global center for consumer internet, AI/ML research, and high-growth software startups. Entry-level total compensation at named employers regularly clears $200,000 for new bachelor's graduates from top programs.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County
Quieter but substantial tech market centered on entertainment-tech (Netflix, Disney Streaming, Riot, Activision-Blizzard), aerospace-adjacent software (SpaceX, Anduril, Northrop), and emerging fintech and consumer-app clusters.
San Diego
San Diego County
Smaller but dense in defense, biotech-adjacent software, and Qualcomm-anchored wireless engineering.
California does not levy a separate state-level tech tax credit at scale; the federal R&D credit is the relevant lever for most tech employers.
California Regulation Affecting Data Science Graduates
Several California laws directly shape what CS graduates work on — particularly anyone joining a privacy, security, data, or AI team. These create both job market demand (compliance is a substantial employer concern) and constrain technical decisions in ways federal law does not.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA / CPRA)
Strongest US state privacy law. Requires explicit consumer rights around data access, deletion, and sale opt-out for any business serving California residents at scale.
Engineers joining privacy, data, or security teams at California employers engage with CCPA daily.
Read moreAB-2273 — California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act
Requires data minimization, default privacy protections, and impact assessments for online products likely to be accessed by minors.
Drove significant engineering work at every consumer internet company headquartered in California.
Read moreSB-21 and state AI guidance
California has issued executive-branch guidance on generative AI in state government and is the most active US state legislature on AI policy.
Engineers building AI products serving California users should expect material compliance overhead.
Read moreCalifornia Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
First US state privacy enforcement agency. Issues regulations under CCPA/CPRA and brings enforcement actions.
Tech-adjacent compliance work has grown substantially since CPPA stood up.
Read moreProfessional Engineer Licensure in California
California recognizes Professional Engineer (PE) licensure in software engineering, but it is rarely required for industry work. ABET-EAC accredited SE degrees count toward PE eligibility; ABET-CAC CS does not. Most California CS graduates never seek PE licensure.
California licensing boardCalifornia Financial Aid Programs
Cal Grant A/B/C
State grantUp to ~$12,570/yr for UC, ~$5,742/yr for CSU, ~$1,094/yr for community college
California residents pursuing undergraduate degrees with demonstrated financial need
Middle Class Scholarship
State grantVaries by income tier
California undergrads at UC and CSU with family income up to $217,000
California College Promise Grant
Community college fee waiverFull enrollment fee waiver
California residents at community college with financial need
Chafee Grant
State grantUp to $5,000/yr
Current or former foster youth pursuing vocational training or college
Transfer Pathways for California Data Science Students
Verdict: California's ASSIST.org articulation system supports DS-track transfer pathways well at the foundational level (statistics, calculus, linear algebra, programming). The DS-specific challenge is that most California public universities don't yet offer a standalone undergraduate Data Science degree, DS students typically major in CS, Statistics, Applied Math, or specialized programs like UC Berkeley's Data Science major (one of the early dedicated undergraduate DS degrees, established 2018). Transfer pathways therefore vary by destination program.
UC Berkeley's Data Science major is the standout undergraduate DS option in California (and nationally), students apply to the Data Science program directly and complete the major through Berkeley's Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society. Transfer admission to Berkeley's Data Science is genuinely competitive (similar selectivity to Berkeley CS) but somewhat more open than CS due to the program's larger enrollment capacity.
Best California community college DS-feeder schools: Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, strong UC Berkeley and Stanford-adjacent transfer record), De Anza College (Cupertino, strong San Jose State and UC pipelines), Santa Monica College (strong UCLA pipeline), Sierra College (NorCal, strong UC Davis pipeline), Diablo Valley College (Pleasant Hill, strong UC Berkeley transfer record), and Pasadena City College. The DS prerequisite sequence (calc through multivariable, linear algebra, intro programming, intro statistics) maps cleanly across CCC ASSIST.
Beyond UC Berkeley: UCLA's Statistics and Data Science combined program, UC San Diego's Data Science major (the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, one of the most-established US dedicated undergraduate DS programs), UC Davis Statistics and Data Science, UC Irvine Data Science, and UC Santa Cruz Computer Science with DS-track emphasis all offer strong undergraduate DS programs. CSU campuses (San Jose State, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Sacramento, CSU East Bay) have growing DS programs with materially more open transfer admission and strong industry placement into Silicon Valley DS roles. For California DS-track students, the UC Berkeley pathway is the research-and-FAANG optimization; UC San Diego is the biotech-DS optimization; UCLA is the strong-balanced option; CSU campuses are the affordable accessible-DS optimizations.
Data Science Job Growth in California
Source: BLS Occupational Outlook
California Data Science Job Market & Salary
Verdict: California has the largest and highest-paid data science / machine learning job market in the world. The Bay Area's combined Big Tech ML labs (Google AI, Meta AI / FAIR, Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia Research, Apple ML), Big Tech production DS organizations (Google Search/Ads DS, Meta DS, Apple Services DS, Netflix DS), and the broader DS-vendor cluster (Databricks, Snowflake, Datadog, Splunk) creates DS employment density unmatched anywhere on Earth. ML research scientist compensation at frontier labs regularly exceeds $500,000-$1,000,000+ total comp; production DS roles at Big Tech routinely pay $200,000-$400,000.
By metro: Bay Area (San Jose / San Francisco / Oakland) averages ~$180,000-$240,000 for data scientist roles per Levels.fyi, with substantial premiums for ML engineer roles ($200,000-$320,000) and exceptional premiums for ML research scientist roles at frontier AI labs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR, xAI, often $400,000-$1,000,000+ at senior levels). Major Bay Area DS employers: Google (Search, Ads, YouTube, DeepMind), Meta (FAIR, Reality Labs, Ads, Family of Apps DS), Apple (Siri, Apple Intelligence, Services), Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft Bay Area AI research, Netflix, Stripe, Airbnb, Uber data science, Lyft data science, Salesforce, Adobe, Intuit, Databricks, Snowflake.
Los Angeles averages ~$130,000-$170,000 for data scientist roles with strong concentrations at Netflix data science (Los Gatos/LA), Disney Streaming DS, Riot Games analytics, Activision-Blizzard DS (now Microsoft), SpaceX DS, plus growing entertainment-tech and ad-tech DS. San Diego averages ~$130,000-$160,000 anchored by Illumina (one of the largest US biotech DS operations, genomics data at scale), Qualcomm research, Northrop Grumman aerospace DS, plus the substantial UCSD-bioinformatics research pipeline.
The California DS market is structurally different from elsewhere.
Beyond the obvious compensation premium, three California-specific dynamics matter: (1) Frontier AI research is overwhelmingly California-concentrated, for DS graduates targeting AI research scientist roles, California is functionally the only US destination. (2) The DS-vendor ecosystem (Databricks, Snowflake, Datadog, Splunk, dbt Labs, Confluent) employs thousands of DS engineers building data infrastructure and developer tools, career paths that don't really exist outside CA at this density. (3) The data team density at every Bay Area startup means that early-career DS engineers gain breadth of experience that's hard to replicate elsewhere. For DS-career students, California is the no-compromise optimization, but only at the cost of California cost of living. See AI/ML Engineer Career Guide and Data Analyst Career Guide.
Entry-Level (0-2 yrs)
New graduates and career changers
Senior (8+ yrs)
Technical leads and architects
Online vs On-Campus Data Science Programs in California
Online Programs
30 available in California
On-Campus Programs
Traditional classroom experience
Compare Data Science Programs in Other States
- Total Programs
- 19
- Median Tuition
- $11,100
- Total Programs
- 7
- Median Tuition
- $7,900
- Total Programs
- 29
- Median Tuition
- $11,000
- Total Programs
- 43
- Median Tuition
- $11,000
- Total Programs
- 77
- Median Tuition
- $8,700
- Total Programs
- 120
- Median Tuition
- $7,100
- Total Programs
- 71
- Median Tuition
- $47,600
- Total Programs
- 33
- Median Tuition
- $11,400
Data Science Degree Programs in California: FAQ
What are the best data science degree programs in California?
How much do data science degree programs cost in California?
What salary can data science degree graduates earn in California?
Are there online data science degree programs in California?
What companies hire data science degree graduates in California?
Is a data science degree program worth it in California?
How long do data science degree programs take in California?
What financial aid is available for data science degree students in California?
Data Sources
Institutional characteristics, completions, graduation rates
California salary and employment data
Program details and admissions information
Last Updated: June 26, 2026. Rankings based on IPEDS 2024 data. Salary data from BLS OEWS May 2024.
Taylor Rupe
Co-founder & Editor (B.S. Computer Science, Oregon State • B.A. Psychology, University of Washington)
Taylor combines technical expertise in computer science with a deep understanding of human behavior and learning. His dual background drives Hakia's mission: leveraging technology to build authoritative educational resources that help people make better decisions about their academic and career paths.