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Sara Sandhu
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• 87% of the top 15 institutions are in the CSU system
• 95% of the top 20 are public colleges
• 95% of the top 20 are Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)

Oakland, CA (Feb. 20, 2025) – A new ranking system for California four-year institutions takes a fresh look at how well colleges and universities deliver on the promise of economic mobility for low- and moderate-income learners. Rather than prioritizing inputs like test scores and exclusivity like traditional news rankings often do, the California Mobility Index (CMI) takes a different approach by highlighting institutions that enroll large numbers of underserved learners and provide them with a strong return on investment, ultimately driving upward economic mobility.

According to the CMI, the institutions that excel in lifting learners up the socioeconomic ladder are those that serve a broad base of underserved learners while offering them a quick return on their educational investment. The CMI includes 82 four-year institutions that together enroll more than 785,000 undergraduate students.

“The California Mobility Index provides a real-world look at our state’s colleges and universities and lets higher education leaders, policymakers and learners know which institutions best deliver on the promise of economic mobility,” said Eloy Ortiz Oakley, President and CEO of College Futures Foundation which underwrote the research and development of the new CMI.

Oakley said that some traditionally “top ranked” universities recognized within popular news publications do not serve high shares of low- and moderate-income learners, noting, “This ranking sets a new standard in assessing value and return, and it is one we hope policy and higher education leaders will embrace as a new way of unlocking opportunity by encouraging the kind of enrollment practices that are working.”

The HEA Group—an organization that focuses on college access, value, and economic mobility—conducted extensive research and provided the data analysis informing the rankings. President and Founder, Michael Itzkowitz, said the data-backed index is based on percentage of Pell recipients an institution enrolls and the return on investment they provide for these learners.

“Each and every learner who pursue a postsecondary education deserves to be left better off than where they started,” Itzkowitz said. “The California Mobility Index determines the scope of how well institutions are delivering and sets a new standard of assessing economic value and impact in higher education.”

Leveraging Transparency Solutions

Conversations in public policy circles have focused on the need to leverage data transparency solutions for learners, which resulted in the 2021 launch of the Cradle-to-Career Longitudinal Data System (C2C) to unlock critical information about learners’ educational experiences and expose gaps in opportunity and success for underserved Californians. Tying this continued transparency as contained in C2C to tools like the CMI will allow for more informed decision-making that will enable greater economic mobility for all Californians, Oakley stressed.

The Findings

• California State Universities lead the way on economic mobility for low- and moderate-income students throughout the state, with 13 of the top 15 institutions falling within the CSU system.
• Public institutions provide more economic mobility than private institutions, as they generally enroll a higher proportion of students from diverse economic backgrounds, provide an affordable education, and allow them to enter the workforce earning a high enough income to pay down their educational costs quickly.
• Additionally, 19 of the top 20 schools are HSIs. These factors indicate that diversifying opportunity to a broader socioeconomic population means stronger economic opportunities for individuals, communities, the state and economy.

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