History Degrees in California

James Marshall found gold in the South Fork of the American River on January 24, 1848, while building a sawmill for John Sutter at Coloma. Nine days later the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in Mexico City, ending the war and handing California to the United States, and neither government yet knew what had been found. For those nine days the richest discovery in the continent’s history sat on land that was still legally Mexico. Californian history turns on that kind of timing, and the state supports more places to study it than almost anywhere.

California has 70 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 161 programs among them: 99 bachelor’s degrees, 41 master’s degrees, and 21 doctorates.

Ten of those schools run history from the bachelor’s straight through to a doctorate, behind only New York and Texas.

Top History Schools in California

We scored all 70 California schools on the four factors we use in every state: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Depth belongs to UC Santa Barbara at 9 programs and UC Riverside at 8, well clear of the field. Outcomes are exceptional at the top, with UCLA and Berkeley both completing 93% of students in four years and Stanford at 92%. Reputation separates almost nobody, since nine of the ten below are R1 research universities. Affordability is the one factor the University of California cannot win, and it is why the list looks the way it does. Here are California’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in California

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Every school on this list belongs to the California State University system, and the whole list runs from $7,159 to $7,950. All but Channel Islands and Dominguez Hills also run a history master’s.

History Education in California

California runs two public university systems, and for history they do almost entirely different jobs. Every school in our top ten is either a University of California campus or Stanford. Every school on our affordability list is a California State University campus. Neither list contains a single institution from the other group.

The price gap explains most of it. The ranked UC campuses charge between $15,203 and $16,774 in state, while the CSU campuses above run from $7,159 to $7,950, roughly half. What the UC campuses buy with the difference is doctoral capacity: California holds 21 history doctorates, and they sit almost entirely inside the UC system and the private research universities.

Public history is where California is genuinely distinctive. UC Santa Barbara and Sacramento State jointly award a Ph.D. in Public History, a partnership requiring at least a year of residency on each campus, and Sacramento State calls it unique in the country. UC Riverside runs its own separate M.A. and Ph.D. in the field. Between them, doctoral public history training in California exists at three campuses through two programs, which is more than any other state offers.

Art history is the other strength, and it is a large one. Thirty-four of California’s 159 programs carry an art history designation, the second-largest count in the country behind New York. They run to the top of the ladder, with doctorates at UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, UCLA, UC San Diego, and Stanford. Six museum studies programs sit alongside them, including a master’s at San Francisco State and Claremont Graduate University’s degree in the field.

Transfer changed recently, and most guides have not caught up. Cal-GETC replaced both IGETC and CSU GE Breadth in fall 2025, creating one 34-unit, 11-course general education pattern that qualifies a community college student for transfer into either the UC or the CSU system. The change came from Assembly Bill 928. Students who enrolled before fall 2025 and stayed continuously enrolled can generally keep the older pattern, and UC still accepts IGETC certifications, so check which pattern applies to you at the UC transfer requirements page.

Online study is thin for the size of the state. Our directory lists 7 online history programs, 5 bachelor’s and 2 master’s. CSU East Bay runs three of the seven on its own, including an online master’s and an online teaching-track bachelor’s. Our guide to online history degrees covers the wider field.

Becoming a History Teacher in California

California credentials the whole field together. The relevant document is the Single Subject Teaching Credential in Social Science, so the license covers geography, government, and economics alongside history, not history by itself.

Where California is more flexible than most states is in how you prove you know the subject. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing accepts five different routes to subject matter competence, and the CSET examination is only one of them. The others include completing a CTC-approved subject matter preparation program, completing coursework verified against the Commission’s adopted domains, holding an academic major in the credential subject area, or combining coursework with examination.

That matters when you are comparing degrees. Some California history departments house a CTC-approved subject matter preparation program, which lets you satisfy the requirement through the major itself rather than by sitting the CSET. Whether a specific program qualifies is worth asking about directly, because the answer changes what your last two years look like.

You can see the credential shaping the degrees in our directory. CSU Bakersfield offers a B.A. in History with a Social Science Teaching Concentration, CSU East Bay a B.A. in History and Social Science Teaching, and CSU Los Angeles a history B.A. with a teacher preparation option. All three name social science rather than history, because that is what the credential says.

Confirm current requirements with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing before choosing a program.

History Careers in California

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025.

California pays above the national median in every occupation on this list, which few states manage, and one figure stands out well beyond the rest. Postsecondary history teachers earn a median $127,170, which is 52% above national and the highest of any state in the country. Second place is not close.

The volume is there too. California employs more archivists than any other state at 1,160, and its 1,140 curator positions are second only to New York’s. Those are large enough numbers that a graduate looking at collections work has a genuine regional market, not a handful of openings.

The caution is cost of living, which these figures do not adjust for. A $101,370 median for secondary school teaching is 41% above the national number, and much of that premium is absorbed by housing in the metropolitan areas where the jobs are concentrated. The pay advantage is real, but it is not the same as 41% more money in hand.

History Resources in California

• The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. The original collection was acquired in 1905, and it remains the largest collection of material on California history and Western North America anywhere in the world.
• California Historical Society Collection at Stanford. The California Historical Society dissolved after 153 years and Stanford took permanent stewardship of its collection in January 2025, more than 600,000 items covering the Gold Rush, statehood, and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. The collection is not yet fully open. Material is being processed and released as it is integrated into Stanford Libraries, and the old digital library was retired in December 2025, so check current access before planning research around it.
• California State Archives, Sacramento, the official repository for state government records going back to the mid-nineteenth century.
• The Huntington Library, San Marino, a research library and museum with major holdings in American and British history.

Frequently Asked Questions