Ranking: Stanford Tops Wall Street Journal’s 2025 Best Colleges In America

SCHOOLS RANKED BY SOCIAL MOBILITY

For social mobility, WSJ looked at how much schools enhance students’ social mobility after graduation. Institutions with the highest proportion of students that come from lower-income families, high graduation rates, high salary impact for graduates, and lower costs do the best in this metric.

Here, public schools dominate with all 20 of the top schools on this list being public.

University of California, Los Angeles is the best school for social mobility with a category score of 99.8. It scored a perfect 100 in both salary impact and graduation rate. It has an average net price of $4,133 with a value added graduate salary of $31,298.

A table with the top 20 schools for social mobility is presented below.

WSJ/College Pulse Top 20 For Social Mobility
Rank	School	Type	State	Score
1	California State University, Los Angeles	Public	CA	99.8
2	California State University, San Bernardino	Public	CA	99.2
3	University of California, Merced	Public	CA	99.2
4	California State University, Stanislaus	Public	CA	99.1
5	California State University, Fresno	Public	CA	99
6	Lehman College, CUNY	Public	NY	99
7	Baruch College, CUNY	Public	NY	98.9
8	California State University, Northridge	Public	CA	98.6
9	California State University, Sacramento	Public	CA	97.6
10	California State University, Fullerton	Public	CA	97.3
11	University of Texas Rio Grande Valley	Public	TX	97.2
12	California State University, Long Beach	Public	CA	96.6
13	California State Polytechnic University, Pomona	Public	CA	96.3
14	Montclair State University	Public	NJ	96.2
15	California State University, Dominguez Hills	Public	CA	96.2
16	California State University, San Marcos	Public	CA	95.3
17	Florida International University	Public	FL	95.3
18	University of California, Riverside	Public	CA	95
19	University of Illinois Chicago	Public	IL	94.8
20	University of Texas at El Paso	Public	TX	94.5

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