California research universities: readability rankings

Readability scores, grades, and the most common failures for 25 California research university websites, from ScanGov homepage scans.

  • Sites: 25
  • Last scan: 11/8/2026

Showing California research university sites. All education sites

R1 and R2 universities in California, public and private together.

F 52

Average readability score of 22 fully scanned California research university sites

7th

of 17 states, ranked by average readability score

22 of 25

California research university sites fully scanned. We couldn't fully scan 3, so they're listed without grades

F 56

Average readability score of all 2,687 fully scanned education sites

How California readability scores are distributed

Smoothed distribution of the 22 fully scanned California research university sites, score 0 to 100. Height shows how many sites score near each value.

  • California average
  • All education average
View the data table
Score rangeSites
0 to 910
10 to 190
20 to 290
30 to 390
40 to 490
50 to 590
60 to 690
70 to 790
80 to 890
90 to 10011

California research universities by readability grade, compared with all education sites

Share of fully scanned sites in each grade band. California research universities: 22 sites. All education: 2687 sites.

  1. California
  2. All education sites
  • A (90 to 100)
  • B to C (70 to 89)
  • D to F (below 70)
View the data table
GroupA (90 to 100)B to C (70 to 89)D to F (below 70)
California50% (11)0% (0)45% (10)
All education sites53% (1,425)0% (0)41% (1,110)

Top 3 California research university sites by readability score

#1 in California · U.S. education rank 1

California Institute of Technology

A 100 readability

  • Accessibility B
  • Botability A
  • Security A
  • Usability A
  • Readability A

#1 in California · U.S. education rank 1

California State University-East Bay

A 100 readability

  • Accessibility A
  • Botability C
  • Security C
  • Usability F
  • Readability A

#1 in California · U.S. education rank 1

California State University-Fresno

A 100 readability

  • Accessibility A
  • Botability A
  • Security B
  • Usability D
  • Readability A

Most common readability failures among California research university sites

Share of the 22 fully scanned California research university sites failing each check. A site can fail more than one check. Each check links to the sites failing it, or to its standard when we have no list yet.

  1. Reading level45%
View the data table
CheckShare failingSites failing
Reading level45%10

What each check means

  • Reading level. Page text reads at or below a 7th grade level so most users can understand it. Users struggle to understand your content.

Every education site with one problem

Research universities in California by readability score

Rank Site Checks passed Grade
1 caltech.edu
California Institute of Technology U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 csueastbay.edu
California State University-East Bay U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 fresnostate.edu
California State University-Fresno U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 csusb.edu
California State University-San Bernardino U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 lmu.edu
Loyola Marymount University U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 sdsu.edu
San Diego State University U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 berkeley.edu
University of California-Berkeley U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 ucdavis.edu
University of California-Davis U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 uci.edu
University of California-Irvine U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 ucr.edu
University of California-Riverside U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
1 ucsb.edu
University of California-Santa Barbara U.S. rank 1 		1 of 1 checks pass A
2 apu.edu
Azusa Pacific University U.S. rank 58 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 csulb.edu
California State University-Long Beach U.S. rank 84 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 chapman.edu
Chapman University U.S. rank 82 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 cgu.edu
Claremont Graduate University U.S. rank 98 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 llu.edu
Loma Linda University U.S. rank 148 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 sfsu.edu
San Francisco State University U.S. rank 180 		0 of 1 checks pass F
2 stanford.edu
Stanford University U.S. rank 2 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 ucla.edu
University of California-Los Angeles U.S. rank 98 		0 of 1 checks pass F
4 ucsd.edu
University of California-San Diego U.S. rank 124 		0 of 1 checks pass F
2 usc.edu
University of Southern California U.S. rank 16 		0 of 1 checks pass F
fullerton.edu
California State University-Fullerton 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We couldn't fully scan your site because it responded without any page content. Status 995 -
ucmerced.edu
University of California-Merced 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We weren't able to fully scan your site. Status 403 -
ucsc.edu
University of California-Santa Cruz 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We couldn't scan your site because it showed our bot a captcha or browser check instead of the page. Status 996 -
3 sandiego.edu
University of San Diego U.S. rank 63 		Not fully scanned, so not graded. We were able to fully scan your site. Status 200 -

About this data

ScanGov scans the homepage of each college and university site on our higher education list. Scores come from the checks in the ScanGov standards. Sites were scanned between 10/25/2026 and 11/8/2026. Each site's report shows its own scan date. A site counts as fully scanned when its homepage loaded and sent us its page content. Averages, grade shares, failure rates, and ranks use fully scanned sites only. We could not fully scan 3 sites. They did not respond, blocked the scanner, or sent no page content. They appear in the table without grades, with their scan status, and are left out of every figure. Grades follow the ScanGov grade scale. Rank follows the ScanGov ranking method. The full dataset, with every county's raw results, is in the ScanGov data repository.

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