Dominguez Hills ranks #24 on list of U.S. universities whose graduates receive the best payoff for their degrees.
By Deshawn Pouper, Staff Reporter
CSUDH was one of four California universities to place on Forbes’ list of the nation’s best colleges with the highest payoff. Dominguez Hills was ranked 24 out of 25 universities on Forbes’ list, which included a mix of public and private institutions like Princeton University (#1), CUNY Queens College (#9), and Vanderbilt University (#25). The other three California universities listed included Stanford University (#2), Caltech (#4), and Claremont McKenna University (#23).
To create the list, Forbes analyzed each school’s “price-to-earnings premium,” which calculates “the number of years it takes graduates to recoup the net cost of their education.” Forbes also considered the levels of debt students take on to enroll at the school and how much they still have after graduation. According to Forbes, the CSUDH programs with the best return on investment are business administration, criminal justice, and psychology.
Forbes’ rankings, released last month, come at a time of increased skepticism around the value of a college degree. In July 2023, a Gallup survey found that 36 percent of people in the U.S. had “a great deal” of confidence in higher education – down from 48 percent in 2018. Gallup “did not probe for reasons behind the recent drop in confidence,” but cited “the rising costs of postsecondary education” as a possible reason for the decline.
According to an analysis published this month by Pew Research, U.S. borrowers owed $1.6 trillion in student loans as of June 2024 – 42 percent more than what was owed in 2014.
In an email to The Bulletin, Acting Provost Philip LaPolt said, “students, faculty and staff work hard to achieve the university’s mission of providing an accessible, high-quality education that leads to personal and professional success, and economic and social mobility.”
The criminal justice program at CSUDH was launched by professor Augustus “Gus” Martin in 2001 (it was previously a concentration under the public administration department). The program is now one of the most popular at the university, with an estimated enrollment of 1,300 students. According to Marin, criminal justice students are driven by a desire to “do something” for their communities.
“A lot of students want to be affiliated with law enforcement, either as a sworn officer or a probation officer,” Martin told The Bulletin.
Alexis Strickland graduated from the criminal justice program in 2019. Strickland cited her professors as an inspiration, adding that her internships helped her to feel prepared to enter the field.
“They were all passionate about what they were doing,” Strickland said. “I had a professor, she did statistics mainly focused on criminal justice – so that helped kind of shape me into what I’m doing today.”
Similar to other programs at CSUDH, students in these programs are required to complete an internship prior to graduation. They are placed with an agency or non-profit organization to get real-life experience relevant to their coursework.
Strickland landed an internship at the Los Angeles County Probation Department during her junior year. After a two-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was eventually hired to a full-time position as a juvenile probation officer.
Psychology is another popular program at CSUDH. Carl Sneed, who serves as chair of the department, echoed Martin’s view that many students enrolled in the program are driven by a commitment to community service.
“In psychology, some of our students go to open-community based organizations to help out people with the same psychological elements they had growing up,” Sneed said.
