California employs 75,090 medical and health services
managers, more than any other state, and offers 15 healthcare
administration programs in California to supply them. That works out at roughly
5,006 jobs for every degree program in the state,
the tightest ratio in the country. The shortage is the most important thing to
understand before comparing the 15 below.
1 Health Care Administration (BS-HCA)
California State University-Long Beach
On campus
Long Beach, CA
$6,084 in-state tuition69% graduation rate46% admit rate68.8 score
CSULB graduated its first cohort in 1988 and has held full AUPHA certification since 1996, which is a peer-reviewed examination of curriculum, infrastructure and outcomes rather than a membership badge.
The Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration is housed in the College of Health and Human Services. The university is specific about what the certification means: programs are examined externally to determine the quality of the curriculum, the infrastructure behind it and the outcomes it produces, and the certification has been continuously held rather than recently obtained.
That matters more at this level than it looks, because CAHME, the accreditor most readers have heard of, accredits master's programs only and reaches no bachelor's degree anywhere. AUPHA certification is the undergraduate equivalent, and relatively few programs in this field state it.
- AUPHA fully certified member since 1996
- First cohort graduated 1988
- College of Health and Human Services
- External peer review of curriculum and outcomes
The school states this program holds AUPHA certification. AUPHA certifies
undergraduate programs in health administration, which is a different thing from
the CAHME accreditation that applies to master's degrees.
View California State University-Long Beach's Health Care Administration (BS-HCA)
2 Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration
Agape College of Business and Science
Online and on campus
Fresno, CA
$12,081 in-state tuition78% graduation rate68 score
Agape’s 180-quarter-credit BS includes a 150-hour externship, a 90-hour internship and a healthcare administration capstone.
The catalog revised in March 2025 describes hybrid study with hands-on residential instruction. Early courses address medical terminology, office technology, billing, coding, and administrative applications. Upper-division work moves into healthcare finance, information systems, personnel management, quality assurance and risk management.
Students complete 60 general education credits alongside the specialized coursework and electives. The capstone and placements are separate requirements. Research assignments use electronic journals, and orientation includes training in the Populi learning system used for online discussions and coursework.
- 180 quarter credits
- Externship and internship
- Healthcare capstone
View Agape College of Business and Science's Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration
3 Bachelor of Science in Health Administration
West Coast University-Orange County
Fully online
Anaheim, CA
$19,905 in-state tuition60% graduation rate61.9 score
West Coast runs the BSHA entirely online in eight-week terms with start dates through the year, and an accelerated pace finishes it in as few as 40 months.
The structure is built for students who are working: terms run eight weeks rather than a semester, intakes recur across the year instead of once or twice, and the whole degree is completed online. The university names courses in health administration operations, financial analysis and policy development among the coursework.
Two specialization tracks let the degree point somewhere specific rather than staying general: Finance or Strategic Management. West Coast also offers campus-based programs alongside the online one, so the online route is a deliberate parallel rather than the only thing on offer.
- 100% online, eight-week terms
- As few as 40 months at the accelerated pace
- Finance or Strategic Management specializations
- Start dates throughout the year
View West Coast University-Orange County's Bachelor of Science in Health Administration
4 Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
Platt College-Anaheim
Online and on campus
Anaheim, CA
$14,847 in-state tuition64% graduation rate61.4 score
Platt's Healthcare Administration B.A. builds on prior health care education through a prescribed combination of online and campus courses.
Applicants need an academic associate degree or higher in a related health care field. The program adds business and management fundamentals to that earlier clinical or health care education, with an emphasis on administrative work and organizational operations.
The hybrid schedule assigns each course to either online or on-campus delivery. Students therefore need to plan for both formats. Platt's program overview lists Alhambra, California; Anaheim, California; Ontario, California; and Riverside, California, with cohort start dates varying by campus.
- B.A. completion program
- Related associate degree prerequisite
- Hybrid course sequence
- Campus-specific cohort starts
View Platt College-Anaheim's Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
5 Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
Platt College-Los Angeles
Online and on campus
Alhambra, CA
$14,847 in-state tuition63% graduation rate61 score
Platt's Healthcare Administration B.A. builds on prior health care education through a prescribed combination of online and campus courses.
Applicants need an academic associate degree or higher in a related health care field. The program adds business and management fundamentals to that earlier clinical or health care education, with an emphasis on administrative work and organizational operations.
The hybrid schedule assigns each course to either online or on-campus delivery. Students therefore need to plan for both formats. Platt's program overview lists Alhambra, California; Anaheim, California; Ontario, California; and Riverside, California, with cohort start dates varying by campus.
- B.A. completion program
- Related associate degree prerequisite
- Hybrid course sequence
- Campus-specific cohort starts
View Platt College-Los Angeles's Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
6 Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
Platt College-Ontario
Online and on campus
Ontario, CA
$14,847 in-state tuition58% graduation rate59 score
Platt's Healthcare Administration B.A. builds on prior health care education through a prescribed combination of online and campus courses.
Applicants need an academic associate degree or higher in a related health care field. The program adds business and management fundamentals to that earlier clinical or health care education, with an emphasis on administrative work and organizational operations.
The hybrid schedule assigns each course to either online or on-campus delivery. Students therefore need to plan for both formats. Platt's program overview lists Alhambra, California; Anaheim, California; Ontario, California; and Riverside, California, with cohort start dates varying by campus.
- B.A. completion program
- Related associate degree prerequisite
- Hybrid course sequence
- Campus-specific cohort starts
View Platt College-Ontario's Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
7 Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
Platt College-Riverside
Online and on campus
Riverside, CA
$14,847 in-state tuition58% graduation rate59 score
Platt's Healthcare Administration B.A. builds on prior health care education through a prescribed combination of online and campus courses.
Applicants need an academic associate degree or higher in a related health care field. The program adds business and management fundamentals to that earlier clinical or health care education, with an emphasis on administrative work and organizational operations.
The hybrid schedule assigns each course to either online or on-campus delivery. Students therefore need to plan for both formats. Platt's program overview lists Alhambra, California; Anaheim, California; Ontario, California; and Riverside, California, with cohort start dates varying by campus.
- B.A. completion program
- Related associate degree prerequisite
- Hybrid course sequence
- Campus-specific cohort starts
View Platt College-Riverside's Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration
8 Bachelor of Science (BS) in Healthcare Administration
California Baptist
Fully online
Riverside, CA
$39,078 in-state tuition62% graduation rate85% admit rate57.8 score
CBU builds the major at 52 units and requires every student to add a minor alongside it, so the degree cannot be taken on its own.
The Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration is framed as combining an interest in business management with healthcare systems, and the university names the destinations plainly: manager and executive roles in nursing homes, rehabilitation centres, hospitals and clinics. The training is described as analytical and managerial, oriented toward overseeing doctors, nurses and other providers rather than practising alongside them.
The required minor is the structural feature worth planning around. At 52 units the major leaves room for it by design, which means a student chooses a second subject as part of the degree rather than as an extra.
- 52-unit major
- A minor is required alongside the major
- Aimed at nursing home and hospital management
- Analytical and management skills emphasis
View California Baptist's Bachelor of Science (BS) in Healthcare Administration
9 Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Management
Concordia University-Irvine
Fully online
Irvine, CA
$42,500 in-state tuition58% graduation rate66% admit rate57.8 score
Concordia teaches healthcare management as a Bachelor of Arts in its School of Health and Human Sciences, built around budgeting, planning, leadership and accountability.
The degree is aimed at positions that improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare organizations and the delivery of care, with professional development and advocacy named as the focus. Concordia lists an unusually wide set of sectors its graduates enter: hospitals, clinics and long-term care alongside information technology, non-profits, public health, mental health, insurance, marketing, finance and public policy.
The Bachelor of Arts framing is worth noticing next to the Bachelor of Science degrees elsewhere on this list. It signals where the university places the subject, which is with the human sciences rather than with the clinical or the purely quantitative.
- Bachelor of Arts rather than a B.S.
- School of Health and Human Sciences
- Budgeting, planning and accountability core
- Named routes into insurance, policy and non-profits
View Concordia University-Irvine's Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Management
10 Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration
National
Fully online
San Diego, CA
$13,284 in-state tuition43% graduation rate57.6 score
The degree ends with a two-month supervised internship at an approved healthcare agency, and it sits behind all fourteen other major courses as a prerequisite, so students arrive at the placement having already finished the finance, policy, and quality coursework.
The BSHA requires at least 120 semester credit hours, 30 of them completed in residence at National University and 51 at the upper division level, alongside a minimum of 46 credits of general education. The preparation sequence leans more toward public health than business. It includes medical terminology, financial and managerial accounting, statistics for the health professions, epidemiology, pathophysiology from a public health viewpoint, health behavior, and a course on culture and social determinants of health. Microeconomics and macroeconomics are also required before students move into the major coursework.
Fifteen upper division courses carry the major: healthcare management theory, health law and ethics, the US delivery system, health technology covering telehealth and mHealth applications, human resources, quality improvement and risk management, health economics, financial management and budgeting, case and outcomes management, strategic planning, healthcare marketing, organizational behavior, health policy, and global health systems. The last is the internship, a two-month placement matched to student interest and site availability, graded on an S/H/U scale rather than letter grades. Courses run online or hybrid, and the program is also offered in person at the main campus in San Diego, California. Applications are reviewed year-round.
- Required two-month administrative internship
- 120 credits with 51 at the upper division
- Online, hybrid, or on campus in San Diego, CA
- Epidemiology and health statistics in the core
View National's Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration
11 Business Administration: Healthcare Administration, B.A.
Fresno Pacific
Fully online
Fresno, CA
$35,990 in-state tuition50% graduation rate64% admit rate57.3 score
Fresno Pacific’s degree-completion BA combines a 39-unit business and healthcare sequence with a research-design capstone and weekly online learning.
Students study accounting, organizational behavior, finance and business law before applying those subjects to healthcare. The nine-unit emphasis addresses healthcare politics and ethics, quality management, and information technology. Economics and statistics are listed as co-requisites outside the 39-unit cohort sequence.
The program uses an adult-student cohort and offers weekly online participation with a recording option. Its curriculum integrates Christian ethics into organizational decisions. Students must earn at least C- in the business and healthcare courses. Fresno Pacific also publishes transfer pathways, with accepted coursework determined through the registrar’s evaluation.
- 39-unit cohort sequence
- Healthcare research-design capstone
- Weekly online participation
View Fresno Pacific's Business Administration: Healthcare Administration, B.A.
12 Health Administration, B.S.
California State University-Northridge
On campus
Northridge, CA
$6,084 in-state tuition57% graduation rate93% admit rate56.9 score
CSUN requires an internship in a healthcare setting, and frames the whole degree as the business side of healthcare rather than as a clinical qualification.
The Bachelor of Science in Health Administration sits in the Department of Health Sciences within the College of Health and Human Development. The university sets out four things students work through: how healthcare organizations are organized and managed, how to improve quality, safety and patient experience, how healthcare is financed and delivered in the United States, and how leaders solve real problems in the field.
The internship is built into the degree rather than offered beside it, and CSUN describes its purpose as both applying the coursework and letting students test which career path they actually want before they graduate into one.
- Internship in a healthcare setting required
- Department of Health Sciences
- Focus on quality, safety and patient experience
- Covers how US healthcare is financed
View California State University-Northridge's Health Administration, B.S.
13 Bachelor's in Healthcare Administration
DeVry University-California
Fully online
Ontario, CA
$16,448 in-state tuition22% graduation rate99% admit rate48.2 score
DeVry's current online Healthcare Administration bachelor's degree offers specializations in management, analytics or a general option, with a shared digital health core.
The 121-credit program covers health care billing, insurance, information systems, finance and patient rights. Its digital health coursework addresses electronic records, privacy, compliance and artificial intelligence. Students practice with simulated patient records and software tools.
The management specialization emphasizes budgets, revenue cycles, policy and staffing. Analytics focuses on interpreting clinical and operational data, while the general option combines finance, policy and administration. These are the university's online program options; campus course availability varies by location.
- 121-credit bachelor's degree
- Three specialization options
- Digital health core
- Online university-wide program
View DeVry University-California's Bachelor's in Healthcare Administration
14 Healthcare Management
La Sierra
On campus
Riverside, CA
$36,720 in-state tuition60% graduation rate91% admit rate47 score
La Sierra splits healthcare business study into two separate majors, and this is the non-clinical half: students planning on medical or dental school are steered to a different degree, Management for Healthcare Professionals, instead of this one.
The degree sits in La Sierra's Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business and launched in 2018, built as a business management major pointed at health organizations rather than a clinical or public health program. The school describes the foundation as business principles and tools applied to how a health organization runs, grows, and serves the population it treats, with the course list published on a separate Health Care Management curriculum sheet rather than on the program page. Faculty all hold a master's degree or higher, every course caps enrollment at thirty students, and professors keep regular posted office hours.
The companion major matters when choosing. La Sierra tells students to pick by career path: Management for Healthcare Professionals packs pre-professional science requirements and a business program into one four-year bachelor's for students headed to medical or dental school, while this Healthcare Management degree covers the administrative side for students who do not intend to practice. Applied work runs through Service-Learning courses, student-led Enactus projects, and an active business club. The school also runs an annual Meet the Firms Night for employer contact and points students toward job and internship openings around Riverside, California.
- Courses capped at 30 students
- Launched 2018 in the Zapara School of Business
- Paired with a separate pre-med management degree
- Service-Learning courses and Enactus projects
View La Sierra's Healthcare Management
15 Bachelor of Arts in Health Care Administration
University of Arizona Global Campus
Fully online
San Diego, CA
$11,040 in-state tuition11% graduation rate45.6 score
Only 36 of the 120 credits are health care administration coursework, leaving 51 elective credits that students may fill with a 9 to 12 credit emphasis drawn from outside healthcare entirely, including Supply Chain Management, Real Estate Studies, or Entrepreneurship.
The 36-credit major starts with HCA 205 Introduction to Health Care and builds through HCA 346 Leadership and Management in Healthcare, HCA 322 Health Care Ethics and Medical Law, and HCA 375 Continuous Quality Monitoring and Accreditation. Upper-division work is HCA 312 Health Care Finance, HCA 415 Community and Public Health, HCA 421 Health Care Planning and Evaluation, and the HCA 460 Health Care Administration Capstone. Supporting courses sit outside the HCA prefix: ACC 281 Accounting Concepts for Health Care Professionals, BUS 303 Human Resource Management, HIM 301 Introduction to Health Informatics, and SOC 313 Social Implications of Medical Issues. No internship or practicum is listed; the capstone is the culminating administrative exercise.
The 120 credits break down as 33 foundation credits, 36 major credits, and 51 electives. Thirty credits must be upper division, 18 of them in the major, and 30 must be earned at UAGC to meet the residency requirement. Courses run in accelerated five-week terms and students take one at a time. Under the Air University Associate to Baccalaureate Cooperative, a graduate holding a Community College of the Air Force Associate in Applied Science needs no more than 60 additional credits. The page states plainly that the program is not designed to meet state educational requirements for any professional license or certification.
- 120 credits, only 36 of them in the major
- Five-week courses taken one at a time
- HCA 460 capstone in place of an internship
- CCAF associate degree transfers via AU-ABC
View University of Arizona Global Campus's Bachelor of Arts in Health Care Administration