If I were in your shoes, I’d rule out Santa Cruz since it does not have a business school or a finance degree. Maybe you can see if their economics graduates do get finance jobs, but I don’t think it’s a target or even semi-target. It may be challenging to find work in that field from the school. Moreover, I’m not exactly sure what you’d do with the economics degree from Santa Cruz. You may have to go to grad school? I’m just not sure. I know people who do love the school, but cost of living is apparently high due to the rental costs and lack of places to live.
My son’s friend graduated from Fullerton in finance. He did well and has a job at JP Morgan, but not in finance. He is an analyst. Probably gets paid decent but without the finance hours. Again, he was heavily involved in finance clubs in college but is not doing finance as a profession but seems to be doing well. Fullerton is more known for accounting. It still tends to be a commuter school and has limited dorms from my understanding (my son has many friends who have graduated from there). It seems like jobs in finance might be scarce but if you seek it aggressively, it could of course happen. It’s still a solid business school, so I’d suggest keeping your mind open for other business type opportunities.
UCR does have a business degree. At least that’s something UCSC does not have. But it’s not a target for finance positions. I believe it’s a good program, but there may only be a handful of graduates that get into the field. Again, it will be challenging. I personally am not fond of Riverside. It’s hot and there’s little to do without a car. LA or Orange is an hour away and closer to 90 minutes away with traffic. It’s not a real great city to live in, in my opinion. Moreover, there’s really no jobs out there. I know of students who transfer out when they get the chance.
Santa Clara also has a very good business school. I know CC people don’t like ROI, but it is fairly high. Take it with a grain of salt, though. The great thing about the school is that they are a fairly wealthy school, spend money on their students by providing them facilities, smaller student to faculty ratio, and is in the heart of Silicon Valley. Although not finance, this might provide the best opportunity for job placement in tech related business. Again, it’s not necessarily finance, although SF is only 45 minutes away. So if money is no object, I believe it would seemingly offer the best opportunity to land a job. It’s not a target school, but it’s respected and there’s not many more competitive schools in the Bay Area above it other than Stanford and UC Berkeley. Maybe SJSU would be the other school that does very well in job placement in areas such as tech and accounting, not sure about finance, though.
Therefore, my thought would be if you want the best chance for a job, in business or maybe an outside chance in finance, and money is ignored, Santa Clara. If money is an object, I’d probably choose Fullerton because it’s cheaper, in a slightly better area than Riverside, has a business school, and you can get a job, likely not finance, but somewhere in business.
Good luck!