The campus is located in Costa Mesa, just four miles from the Pacific Ocean. Costa Mesa is situated along Southern California's spectacular coastline, in Orange County. The climate of the area is close to perfect. The average rainfall is just 14 inches. Winters are mild, and summer days are warm and clear.
Humidity is almost never a problem.
Breezes off the nearby Pacific keep the air clean. Over the past decade, nearly 16,000 OCC students have transferred to UC and CSU campuses. Last year, Orange Coast sent 1,455 students to the two systems. A total of 351 OCC grads went to the nine University of California campuses, and 1,104 went to the 22 California State University campuses. Additionally, many Orange Coast students annually transfer to private colleges and universities, and to institutions outside the state of California.