Pepperdine University in Malibu, California

It is no secret that the city of Malibu, California is home to one of the best beaches in the country, if not the world. However, few students know that a college education can be had only a few steps from the beautiful sands of the beach. With an undergraduate class of less than 4,000 students, Pepperdine University often flies under the radar of most searches by future college students. Still, the private university maintains a reputation as having many strong academic degree programs in its individual colleges. Affiliated with the Churches of Christ, the endowment for the school is quite large and a student can expect state of the art facilities for their education.

The schools of education at Pepperdine are divided into a humanities college, a law school, a school for public policy, an education college, and one for business and management. The annual Forbes list of university rankings places Pepperdine University at number 142 for academic concerns. From these diverse topics, many alumni have gone on to have famous and successful careers. One of the most famous graduates from Pepperdine University is Montell Jordan, a singer that had several number one hits.

Of course, one of the major attractions to Pepperdine University is the extremely attractive campus and landscape. The actual school buildings are situated on a series of ridges that look down to the Pacific Ocean and the world famous beaches. Most of the architecture is of a Mediterranean style, with tiled red roofs and stucco walls on the outside of the buildings. With such a beautiful campus and local scenery, it is amazing that students are able to make it to classes at the highly rated beach college. A student at Pepperdine University must learn how to balance the course load and all of the potential distractions.