Despite its limited geographical space, San Francisco, California is home to over a dozen colleges and universities. Within Downtown San Francisco alone, there are institutions that serve over 13,000 enrolled students. [1]
Public colleges and universities include:
Private colleges and universities:
Name | Public or private | Type | Founded | Enrollment | Colors |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
San Francisco State University | Public | 1899 [1] | 27,815 | ||
University of San Francisco | Private | 1855 [1] | 11,086 | ||
Golden Gate University | Private | 1901 [1] | 5,120 | ||
University of California, San Francisco | Public | Medical school | 1864 [2] | 5,908 | |
University of California College of the Law, San Francisco | Public | Law school | 1878 [1] | ≈1,000 | |
San Francisco Conservatory of Music | Private | Music conservatory | 1917 [3] | ≈500 | |
Academy of Art University | Private | Art school | 1929 [1] | 7,649 | |
California College of the Arts | Private | Art school | 1907 [lower-alpha 1] | 1,930 | |
University of the Pacific (San Francisco Campus) | Private | 1851 [lower-alpha 2] | N/A | ||
Hult International Business School (San Francisco Campus) | Private | Business school | 2010 | N/A | |
Presidio Graduate School | Private | Sustainable business school | 2002 | 152 | |
California Institute of Integral Studies | Private | Graduate school | 1968 [1] | 1,833 | |
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School (San Francisco Campus) | Private | Business school | 2001 [1] | ≈300 | |
City College of San Francisco | Public | Community college | 1935 [6] | 61,452 |
Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, financial, and cultural center within Northern California. With a population of 808,988 residents as of 2023, San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California behind Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose. It covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second-most densely populated major U.S. city behind New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind four of New York City's boroughs. Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022. San Francisco anchors the 13th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest urban region in the U.S., had a 2023 estimated population of over 9 million.
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the most populous city in the East Bay, the third most populous city in the Bay Area, and the eighth most populous city in California. It serves as the Bay Area's trade center: the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California, and the fifth- or sixth-busiest in the United States. A charter city, Oakland was incorporated on May 4, 1852, in the wake of the state's increasing population due to the California gold rush.
Alameda County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alameda County is in the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying much of the East Bay region.
San Francisco State University is a public research university in San Francisco. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is part of the California State University system.
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately 220 undergraduates and 112 graduate students were enrolled in 2021. The institution was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and was a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). The school closed permanently in July 2022.
Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in 1871 and became the second women's college west of the Rockies. In 2022, it merged with Northeastern University.
University of the Pacific is a private university originally founded as a Methodist-affiliated university with its main campus in Stockton, California, and graduate campuses in San Francisco and Sacramento. It was the first university in the state of California, the first independent coeducational campus in California, and the first conservatory of music and first medical school on the West Coast.
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, designing public buildings, including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and also private houses, especially in Berkeley, where he lived and taught at the University of California. A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in San Francisco; in 2022, the Oakland campus was closed and merged into the San Francisco campus. CCA enrolls approximately 1,239 undergraduates and 380 graduate students.
Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California, United States. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aerospace headquarters at 9045 Lincoln Boulevard in Westchester, Los Angeles. The school's programs, accredited by the WSCUC and National Association of Schools of Art and Design, include BFA and MFA degrees.
City College of San Francisco is a public community college in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded as a junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local role, enrolling as many as one in nine San Francisco residents annually. CCSF is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).
The Academy of Art University, formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. Stephens in 1929. The school is one of the largest property owners in San Francisco, with the main campus located on New Montgomery Street in the South of Market district.
Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland hills and north of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue/51st Street and Broadway. Rockridge was listed by Money Magazine in 2002 as one of the "best places to live".
Woodbury University is a private university in Burbank, California. Founded in 1884 with initial campuses in Downtown and Central Los Angeles, Woodbury University is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Southern California. The university consists of four schools: the School of Business, the School of Architecture, the School of Liberal Arts, and the School of Media Culture & Design. It has been a subsidiary of University of Redlands since 2024.
Holy Names University was a private Roman Catholic university in Oakland, California. It was founded in 1868 by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary with which the university remained affiliated until it closed in 2023.
Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) is a visual and performing arts charter school in Oakland, California, United States. OSA opened in 2002 with a curriculum that integrated college preparatory academics with conservatory-style arts training. As of 2017, enrollment was 725 students in grades 6 through 12. It is a member of the Arts Schools Network and the National Association for College Admission Counseling. In 2009, OSA was named a California Distinguished School.
The Peralta Community College District is the community college district serving northern Alameda County, California. The district operates four community colleges: Berkeley City College, Laney College and Merritt College in Oakland, and College of Alameda.
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay. The Association of Bay Area Governments defines the Bay Area as including the nine counties that border the estuaries of San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties which are not officially part of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the Central Coast counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey, or the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, prominent universities, technology companies, and affluence. The Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network.