CPP Receives 5-Star Rating in Money Magazine's 'Best Colleges 2024'
Cal Poly Pomona is named among the nation’s top schools in Money Magazine’s list, “Best Colleges 2024,” earning the maximum 5-star rating. The annual listing, published on June 12, is based on 25 factors in three categories: quality of education, affordability, and alumni outcomes such as post-graduation salaries and social mobility.
The university was recognized for its “strong programs” in engineering, business administration, hospitality management, agriculture, and apparel merchandising and management; its designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency for producing cybersecurity professionals; and a “learn-by-doing approach [that] provides a wealth of internships and research positions.”
Money Magazine also praised Cal Poly Pomona in two other lists it released this year:
- No. 3 - “Best Colleges in the West 2024”
- No. 8 - “Best Public Colleges 2024-25”
The publication acknowledged “unexpected opportunities” for hands-on learning that are unique to Cal Poly Pomona, such as the 75-year collaboration with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to design and build award-winning floats for the Rose Parade at the 14,000-square-foot Rose Float Lab on campus. It also toasted Innovation Brew Works — the nation’s first educational brewery-restaurant on a college campus that is open to the public — for providing the space for students to learn about craft beer-making using barley and oranges grown at university farms.
Senior Ryan Perez’s hospitality career aspirations were sparked in a class taught by a CPP alumnus at Mt. San Antonio College and they continued to grow as he connected with student ambassadors, subsequent courses, and a guided tour of The Collins College of Hospitality Management. Stand-out experiences for him include visits to various hospitality properties to observe operations first-hand and managing the student-run The Restaurant at Kellogg Ranch, “which provides an invaluable team-building and managerial learning experience.”
“Cal Poly Pomona has always been an exceptional institution, and I knew their hospitality program was among the best in the nation,” Perez said. “Today, I am proud to be a student ambassador, working in the industry at the Hyatt Regency in Orange County. Now, I have the privilege of sharing my story with future transfers and colleagues, hoping to inspire them as I was inspired.”
Money Magazine’s “Best Colleges” list analyzed 745 four-year colleges after filtering them from more than 2,400 public and private nonprofit colleges in the country to meet requirements of the publication's methodology, such as a minimum number of undergraduate students enrolled, financial health, and graduation rates that are at or above the median for its institutional category (public, private or Historically Black College or University).
Other CSU campuses in the five-star group in this year’s listing are CSU Long Beach, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and CSU Stanislaus.