The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a

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art school An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on practice and related theory in the visual arts and design. This includes fine art – especially illustration, painting, contemporary art, sculpture, and graphic design. T ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It was founded in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in San Francisco; in 2022, the Oakland campus was closed and merged into the San Francisco campus. CCA enrolls approximately 1,239 undergraduates and 380 graduate students.

History

CCA was founded in 1907 by Frederick Meyer in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

as the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts during the height of the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

. The Arts and Crafts movement originated in Europe during the late 19th century as a response to the industrial aesthetics of the machine age. Followers of the movement advocated an integrated approach to art, design, and craft. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website () The initial campus was in the " Studio Building" at 2045

Shattuck Avenue Shattuck Avenue is a major city street running north–south through Berkeley and Oakland, California. At its southern end, the street branches from Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Temescal district, then ends at Indian Rock Park in the Ber ...

, and they had forty three enrolled students. In 1908 the school was renamed California School of Arts and Crafts. In 1910, the school moved to the site of the former Berkeley High School building at 2119 Allston Way (at Grove Street, now Martin Luther King Way). The college's Oakland campus location was acquired in 1922, when Meyer bought the four-acre James Treadwell estate at Broadway and College Avenue. Two of its buildings are on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. After the San Francisco campus was opened, the Oakland campus continued to house the more traditional, craft based studios like the art glass, jewelry metal arts, printmaking, painting, sculpture and ceramic programs. In 1936, it became the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC). In 1940 a Master of Fine Arts program was established. In the 1980s, the college began renting various locations in San Francisco, and in 1996 it opened a campus in the city's Design District, converting a former

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maintenance building.

21st century and modern history

In 2003, the college changed its name to California College of the Arts, under the leadership of president Michael S. Roth. In 2016, it was decided to close the Oakland campus and consolidate all activities at the San Francisco campus. The final day of classes at Oakland was May 6, 2022. The college said it will "redevelop the campus with community gathering spaces, affordable housing, office space for arts nonprofits and bike parking while preserving the campus’s cluster of historic buildings and trees." Clifton Hall, one of the dormitories at the Oakland campus, was bought by the city of Oakland to use for public housing. Other parts of the Oakland campus remained unused in 2024, with plans to create a mixed-use development with hundreds of residential units. In 2025,

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

co-founder and owner,

Jensen Huang Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang ( zh, t=黃仁勳, poj=N̂g Jîn-hun, hp=Huáng Rénxūn; born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese and American businessman, electrical engineer, and philanthropist who is the president, co-founder, and chief executive of ...

matched the $22.5 million already raised in donations, allowing CCA to fill the budget shortfall

List of presidents

Academics

CCA offers 22 undergraduate and 10 graduate majors. In 2021, CCA unveiled a BFA in Comics. CCA confers the bachelor of fine arts (BFA), bachelor of arts (BA), bachelor of architecture (BArch), master of fine arts (MFA), master of arts (MA), master of architecture (MArch), master of advanced architectural design (MAAD), masters of design (MDes) and master of business administration (MBA) degrees. The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, located near the San Francisco campus in a facility on Kansas St., is a forum for contemporary culture. In 2013 the Wattis Institute recruited a new director, Anthony Huberman, formerly of Artist's Space in New York. In the U.S. News & World Report rankings for 2020, CCA ranked #10 in the country for graduate fine arts programs, #4 in graphic design, and #6 in ceramics. PayScale lists CCA as the #1 art school in the United States for

return on investment Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is the ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favorab ...

and #4 for average alumni salary (

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

). As of 2022, Niche rated CCA with an overall grade of B− (with B− for academics, A+ for diversity, and B− for value), reporting an acceptance rate of 85%, graduation rate of 67%, and average alumni starting salary of $29,400. The average class size is 13 for undergraduate programs and 12 for graduate. The student to faculty ratio is 8:1.

Accreditation

CCA is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).

Notable people

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:California College Of The Arts Art schools in California Universities and colleges in Alameda County, California Architecture schools in California Design schools in the United States Film schools in California Education in Oakland, California Potrero Hill, San Francisco Universities and colleges established in 1907 1907 establishments in California Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Arts and Crafts movement Art in the San Francisco Bay Area Private universities and colleges in California