California State University, Chico

California State University, Chico is one of the few universities that still feels real. It’s not driven by hype or image. Students here get genuine support, grounded education, and a strong sense of community. It’s a place where you’re treated like a person, not just a number or marketing metric. Critical thinkers are encouraged. Practical learning is prioritized. You graduate with skills that matter and a mindset built for real success—not just superficial accolades. In contrast, UC Davis has increasingly become a performative and image-driven institution. The school projects excellence, but much of it is surface-level—built on branding rather than substance. It markets itself heavily and builds a reputation that doesn’t always match the student experience. Many bright, independent minds end up feeling stifled, while those who conform to the system—regardless of merit—rise more easily. It rewards appearances and safe thinking more than originality or depth. At Chico State, students develop sharp thinking and are allowed to be themselves. At Davis, there’s a strong culture of performance over authenticity. It’s polished on the outside, but often lacking the academic soul that truly empowers students. If you want real value, real people, and a campus culture that doesn’t just pretend to care—Chico State is the better choice.

I was super excited to start in the fall of 2024, but the city is not great. For Chico being home to a university, they take no pride in keeping their town safe and clean. The campus is beautiful, but there are a lot more better CSUs in California. All the buildings are super outdated, no diversity in the city, students are rude and entitled, homless everywhere, horrible drivers, weird locals, incidents almost every single day, and the neighorhoods surrounding the univeristy are trashed and suspicious. They push you to move into streets that are close to campus which are the worst areas to live in with the most crime and homeless roaming around. I have had several suspicious people walk by my home while living in Chico and get personal belongings stolen. Several incidents that have occurred i.e, shootings at student apt complexes, random gunshots at night, and several other incidents. There is nothing to do in Chico and anybody who says otherwise is lying to you. Unless you like to be outdoorsy and have the time and money to be driving up to lakes and parks then Chico is fit for you, but no student is going to be driving 1.5-3 hours just to get to a decently sized city that has more food and entertainment to do and that is why every student just goes out to all the dirty nasty bars in Chico. Its a mid school and city, I wouldn't recommend anyone to attend yet alone live in the city.

As a visitor, the campus is a beautiful place to visit. CSU facilities staff does an excellent job of maintaining all of the grounds and buildings. I felt safe on campus.

This campus is beautiful and overall my experience has been great here. Some of the teachers are a little too much with their opinions on society and pushing how they feel on their students is the only downfall here. It can become redundant and a bit annoying when you don't think the same way they do.

Worthless degrees and lifelong crippling debt paying high cost for programs strung out over years from lack of tenured professors so administration can live affluently without guarantee of your future employment. Don't waste your time with college, it'll ruin your life economically, and it's a debt slavery trap (peonage) with government changing the terms every few years depending upon which administration is in power who share crops your future earnings without reprieve. Employers (who will let you go without notice) do not care about that degree they use as a means to discriminate labor while keeping incomes low, they want experience, and good luck getting it! Your net worth is your network; it's all about nepotism in oligarchic America. College debt will preclude you from owning a home or fully participating in American Citizenship based upon ownership of property. But ultimately, you will end up broke, homeless, destitute, and disillusioned trying to get employment with a college degree because the professional management class who has made college so dysfunctional and expensive is also the problem in the corporate and governmental world creating economic stagnation. Seriously, don't waste your time or life on it, you will become a debt slave to the government, and increasingly our country is anti-intellectual you will find yourself isolated from the average person who is okay with economic harm against you by Corporate America.

We went to my great nephew's graduation 🥳🎉. The campus is beautiful 😻. …

Mediocre all around and weird locals. There are much better CSUs to go to. Don't waste your time at Chico.

Amazing university with the perfect access to nearby hiking and biking opptions.

Beautiful campus Great memories Strong education Proud wildcat 🐾🖤❤️

Terrible experience. I wanted to go study in Chico University but they wouldn’t accept my international transcripts. They gave dumb reasons like “stamps on the transcripts from two different schools are the same” even though the lady who reviewed them doesn’t speak a single word of the language the stamps are written in! They were not the same!!!!! They claimed that I forged those transcripts even though CSU Sacramento accepted those exact same transcripts!!! Terrible experience all in all. The international admissions staff there were unfriendly, unhelpful and unqualified. They should be retrained on how to do their job better, so they don’t give this kind of experience to other students. Thankfully I kept my Sacramento application active, so I can go there instead.