Unfortunately, the downside is the town of “Bakersfield”. My brother lives there. It’s a pit stop on the way to Inland Northern California (the Sierra’s-Yosemite, Sequoia, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe). We spend the night there before driving another 6 hours north to the Davis/Sacramento area. (DD goes to UC Davis)
It’s a farming community several hours north of LA. It’s mostly highland, flat, dry desert with tons of dairies, vegetable farms, produce trains, trucking stations, oil companies, and manufacturing plants so there are jobs there. (BTW: Great fresh fruit is awesome in their grocery stores, we tend to wash the fruit REALLY WELL) This is a huge farming community that is largely hispanic. It has the worst air quality in the nation because of the oil derricks, the pesticides and desert “tornados” formed from the farmers kicking up the dirt with their tractors.
But for the most part, it’s a relatively safe area. Rents are very cheap and the places are clean but can be old. They are building in a lot of new areas, so there are newer neighborhoods and schools by my brother’s place. Temperatures do get to extremes: summer can get to 110-120 degrees and hotter. Winter is somewhat wet and gets down to the high 20’s in the same day (that’s cold for us native Californians)!
CSU Bakersfield, however is a good school and it might be really affordable for you. You need to know that it is NOT near any beach but there are a lot of whitewater rafting trips on the Kern River and all of the mountain stuff just north.
I do have to say that I would recommend the town of Bakersfield over Merced. Everyone drives through Bakersfield at one point or other, so watch that speedometer 'cause lots of people get ticketed in Bakersfield.