Ranking
Largest dental schools in California by degrees awarded
The University of Southern California ranks first with 180 dental degrees in 2024–25, according to IPEDS.
6 dental schools in California awarded 735 dental degrees to first majors from July 2024 to June 2025, by NCES’s count: 2nd of the 37 states and DC with a dental school. University of Southern California awarded the most, 180.
Dental degrees awarded · July 2024 to June 2025, NCES’s 2025–26 collection
1 more column on a wider screen
| Rank | Name | dental degrees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Southern California | 180 | 5th of 65 |
| 2 | University of the Pacific | 172 | 6th of 65 |
| 3 | Loma Linda University | 125 | 16th of 65 |
| 4 | University of California-Los Angeles | 109 | 26th of 65 |
| 5 | University of California-San Francisco | 76 | 46th of 65 |
| 6 | Western University of Health Sciences | 73 | 49th of 65 |
What this data cannot show
- A dental school here is a college that awarded at least one degree in NCES's program 51.0401, Dentistry, at NCES's doctor's professional-practice level.
- How a college is organized or accredited is not in NCES’s completions file: a college is of this type because of the degrees it reported, and a university’s whole count is here whichever of its schools awarded them.
- First majors only. NCES counts a graduate with two majors under each; this counts each degree once, under the first.
- Colleges that awarded the same number share a rank.
- The 2025–26 collection is NCES’s newest. Its first release is provisional: institutions’ corrections arrive with the revised file about a year later. NCES imputes the awards of an institution that did not respond, and this table does not mark which.
- 1 institution in California in NCES’s file awarded 35 dental degrees and is not ranked here, because it has no college page: it is outside NCES’s First Look universe of colleges that take federal student aid.
- The state is the one NCES files the college under; a campus in another state is ranked there.
Related
Sources
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 2025–26 collection — National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education · U.S. Government work · retrieved September 30, 2026
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 2025–26.
Compiled automatically from Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 2025–26 collection by a checked SQL query · Editor: Kian O'Connor · How this site is built
Data retrieved