UC · CSU · California Private · White undergraduates against California's 34.7% · 2024

Where Did the White Students Go?The white shortfall at California's universities, campus by campus

California is 34.7% white. Every UC and Cal State campus but 7 enrolls a smaller share than that, and across the two systems it adds up to 80,406 fewer white undergraduates than the campuses would have if each one matched the state. This page counts them: the white share of each campus, how far it sits from California in points, and how many students that gap is. #1 is the campus missing the most.

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Cal State Fullerton is missing 7,839 white students.It is 13.7% white in a state that is 35%. Cal State Long Beach is missing 6,773, Cal State LA 5,862, San Jose State 5,504 and Cal Poly Pomona 5,175. The largest UC shortfalls are UC Irvine at 5,104 and UC Riverside at 5,095. Only 7 public campuses have more white students than their share, and the largest surplus, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at 3,142, is smaller than the shortfall at any of the top 14.
80,406
White undergraduates missing across UC and Cal State: 208,717 at California's share, 128,311 enrolled. White students are 21% of the two systems' domestic undergraduates.
54,660
Missing at the 23 Cal States, which are 21% white. UC's 9 campuses are missing 25,746 and are 22% white.
25 of 32
Public campuses below the state's white share. The 7 above it: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chico State, Cal Poly Humboldt, Sonoma State, San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Maritime.
The three systemsknown domestic undergraduates, 2024
SystemUndergradsWhite shareWhite undergradsAt CA's 34.7%MissingCampuses below
UC208,98222.4%46,74472,49025,7468 of 9
CSU392,73320.8%81,567136,22754,66017 of 23
Private119,80535.7%42,76841,557+1,21121 of 42

Turn a sector off to rank inside the rest: the numbers renumber from 1 and each campus keeps its place among all 74 underneath. Click any column heading to re-sort; the rank always follows students missing.

How to read the table. White share is the navy bar, with California's 34.7% drawn as the gold line; vs CA is the gap in points, red when the campus is below the state. White undergrads is the count enrolled and at CA share is what the count would be if the campus matched California; missing is the difference, and the ranking. A green figure with a plus is a campus above the state share. All counts are of known domestic undergraduates: international students and those with race unknown are excluded, as on the Representation Index.

#CampusSystemUndergradsvs CAWhite undergradsAt CA shareMissing
1Cal State FullertonCSU37,301−21.0 pts5,10012,939
7,839
2Cal State Long BeachCSU34,451−19.7 pts5,17711,950
6,773
3Cal State LACSU19,010−30.8 pts7326,594
5,862
4San Jose StateCSU25,694−21.4 pts3,4098,912
5,504
5Cal Poly PomonaCSU24,168−21.4 pts3,2088,383
5,175
6UC IrvineUC25,831−19.8 pts3,8568,960
5,104
7UC RiversideUC21,416−23.8 pts2,3347,429
5,095
8CSUNCSU30,651−15.5 pts5,89110,632
4,741
9UC San DiegoUC30,247−14.8 pts6,00410,492
4,488
10Fresno StateCSU20,566−19.5 pts3,1337,134
4,001
11CSU Dominguez HillsCSU12,144−30.6 pts4974,212
3,716
12CSU San BernardinoCSU14,500−25.0 pts1,4025,030
3,628
13UC BerkeleyUC28,571−11.8 pts6,5449,910
3,366
14San Francisco StateCSU17,155−18.4 pts2,7965,951
3,155
15UC DavisUC27,402−11.3 pts6,4099,505
3,096
16Sacramento StateCSU27,276−11.3 pts6,3879,461
3,074
17UCLAUC29,836−7.9 pts8,00410,349
2,345
18UC MercedUC8,231−25.3 pts7722,855
2,083
19CSU BakersfieldCSU8,148−21.9 pts1,0412,826
1,785
20Cal State East BayCSU9,152−18.5 pts1,4853,174
1,689
21Stanislaus StateCSU7,997−16.9 pts1,4222,774
1,352
22Cal State San MarcosCSU14,303−9.4 pts3,6204,961
1,342
23USCPrivate16,904−3.8 pts5,2215,864
642
24CSU Channel IslandsCSU4,799−11.4 pts1,1171,665
548
25Stanford UniversityPrivate6,553−8.2 pts1,7372,273
536
26University of La VernePrivate2,970−17.9 pts4971,030
533
27CSU Monterey BayCSU6,578−7.5 pts1,7862,282
496
28University of the PacificPrivate2,743−18.1 pts456952
496
29University of San FranciscoPrivate4,779−9.8 pts1,1891,658
469
30Mount Saint Mary's UniversityPrivate1,583−26.0 pts137549
412
31UC Santa CruzUC16,989−2.4 pts5,4825,893
411
32National UniversityPrivate9,766−3.2 pts3,0803,388
308
33La Sierra UniversityPrivate1,040−25.2 pts99361
262
34California Baptist UniversityPrivate7,626−2.5 pts2,4542,645
192
35Azusa Pacific UniversityPrivate2,502−7.6 pts677868
191
36Fresno Pacific UniversityPrivate1,441−13.2 pts309500
191
37Art Center College of DesignPrivate1,118−16.3 pts206388
182
38Dominican University of CaliforniaPrivate1,017−12.1 pts230353
123
39CaltechPrivate847−12.9 pts185294
109
40Menlo CollegePrivate550−11.6 pts127191
64
41Harvey Mudd CollegePrivate776−5.7 pts225269
44
42Otis College of Art and DesignPrivate981−3.6 pts305340
35
43Whittier CollegePrivate619−5.1 pts183215
32
44California College of the ArtsPrivate637−2.3 pts206221
15
45Vanguard UniversityPrivate1,737−0.7 pts590603
13
46Pomona CollegePrivate1,382−0.6 pts471479
8
47University of RedlandsPrivate1,991+0.8 pts707691
+16
48California Institute of the ArtsPrivate615+10.2 pts276213
+63
49Woodbury UniversityPrivate669+10.3 pts301232
+69
50California Lutheran UniversityPrivate2,158+3.5 pts825749
+76
51Saint Mary's CollegePrivate1,844+4.7 pts727640
+87
52Simpson UniversityPrivate758+12.8 pts360263
+97
53Claremont McKenna CollegePrivate1,118+9.7 pts496388
+108
54Cal MaritimeCSU758+16.4 pts387263
+124
55William Jessup UniversityPrivate1,138+13.0 pts543395
+148
56Concordia University IrvinePrivate1,474+10.9 pts672511
+161
57Pitzer CollegePrivate1,069+19.6 pts580371
+209
58Scripps CollegePrivate1,049+22.6 pts601364
+237
59UC Santa BarbaraUC20,460+1.2 pts7,3387,097
+242
60Occidental CollegePrivate1,763+13.9 pts856611
+244
61Westmont CollegePrivate1,203+21.1 pts671417
+254
62San Diego StateCSU33,644+0.9 pts11,95711,670
+288
63Biola UniversityPrivate3,057+10.1 pts1,3691,060
+309
64Sonoma StateCSU5,004+6.6 pts2,0641,736
+328
65Santa Clara UniversityPrivate5,934+5.6 pts2,3932,058
+334
66The Master's UniversityPrivate1,503+28.7 pts952521
+431
67Pepperdine UniversityPrivate3,180+14.2 pts1,5561,103
+453
68Loyola Marymount (LMU)Private6,429+7.5 pts2,7102,230
+480
69Point Loma Nazarene UniversityPrivate3,056+19.1 pts1,6441,060
+584
70University of San DiegoPrivate5,154+12.7 pts2,4411,788
+653
71Cal Poly HumboldtCSU5,331+19.6 pts2,8941,849
+1,045
72Chapman UniversityPrivate7,070+14.9 pts3,5062,453
+1,053
73Chico StateCSU12,984+8.4 pts5,5974,504
+1,093
74Cal Poly San Luis ObispoCSU21,121+14.9 pts10,4687,326
+3,142

What the ranking says

The shortfall is concentrated in the big Cal States of the Los Angeles basin and the Bay. Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State LA, San Jose State and Cal Poly Pomona are each missing more than 5,100 white students, and together 31,154. None of the five is more than 15% white. These are the largest campuses in the system, so a gap of twenty points becomes thousands of students.

At UC the gap is smaller in points and just as real in students. UC is 22% white against the state's 35%, a shortfall of 25,746 across nine campuses. UC Irvine is missing 5,104, UC Riverside 5,095, UC San Diego 4,488 and UC Berkeley 3,366. Every UC campus is below the state share except UC Santa Barbara. Where the Cal States enroll their own counties, UC selects from the whole state, so its gap is a product of who applies and who is admitted rather than of geography.

Seven public campuses run a surplus, and it is small. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has 3,142 more white students than its share, Chico State 1,093 and Cal Poly Humboldt 1,045; the other four are within a few hundred. Add all seven together and the surplus is 6,261 students, against a shortfall of 86,667 at the other 25.

In headcount, white students are the largest gap of any group in either direction. The Representation Index tallies all seven groups the same way: across UC and Cal State, Asian students are about 47,000 above their proportional count and Hispanic students about 35,000 above, while Black students are about 9,000 below. Measured against the size of each group rather than in students, white students are not the furthest behind at UC: they are at 64% of their proportional count, Black students at 50% and American Indian students at 34%. In students, nothing comes close to 80,406.

The privates, briefly. Taken together the 42 private universities are at the state share: 1,211 white students above it, with 21 campuses under and 21 over. The largest private shortfalls are USC (642), Stanford University (536) and University of La Verne (533); the largest surpluses are at Chapman University and University of San Diego.

What this means for your student. A campus's mix is one part of whether it fits; whether it will say yes is the other, and that varies more by high school than most families expect. The free school report on this page shows how your own high school's applicants have fared at each UC campus, and which campuses have been admitting students from schools like yours.

The measure. For each campus, the white share of known domestic undergraduates is compared with California's 34.7% white (non-Hispanic) in the 2020 Census. Missing is (California's share − the campus share) × the campus's known domestic undergraduates: the number of additional white students the campus would have if its share matched the state's, holding its size fixed. A negative figure, shown in green with a plus, is a campus above the state share. System totals add the campus figures. The ranking is by students missing, so large campuses rank above small ones with the same gap in points; sort the "vs CA" column to rank by points instead.

Data. U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, most recent institution-level file, enrollment year 2024, all degree-seeking undergraduates: the UC and CSU rows from the June 2026 file and the private rows from the Scorecard API on 2026-09-16. Shares are renormalised across known domestic students; international/nonresident (the federal U.S. nonresident category, a student here on a visa; undocumented students are reported by race and are inside the shares) and race unknown are excluded before the comparison. California baseline: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Decennial Census PL 94-171, Table P2, white alone, not Hispanic or Latino. Campus list: the 74 four-year institutions on Where to go, less one national online university.

What it does not say. A shortfall is arithmetic, not a finding: it says how far a campus's enrollment sits from the state's mix, and nothing about why. It does not measure admissions policy or intent, who applied, or how a campus treats the white students it has. A Cal State's mix is largely its county's; a UC's is who applies and who is admitted from across the state; a private's is its mission and its price. It is a snapshot, not a trend: 2024 enrollment against the 2020 population, with no claim about how either has moved. The 2020 census counts all ages, and California's college-age population is less white than its population overall, so a baseline drawn from 18-to-24-year-olds would shrink every figure on this page.
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© 2026 Stewart Digital Affairs · 5055 Canyon Crest Drive, Riverside, CA 92507 · Admitted California is an independent research project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the University of California, the California State University, any private college or university, the California Department of Education, or any high school named on this site. Every figure is drawn from public filings, each named on the methodology page.