California cost view
California launch schools: public value and private sticker shock on one page
The California launch set mixes major public universities with a private research university. That mix is useful because the resident public total and the private total answer different planning questions.
This page covers only the California schools in the launch dataset. It is not a ranking of every college in the state.
| School | City | One-year total | Four years, no increase | Four years, 3% yearly increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stanford University | Stanford | $94,140 | $376,560 | $393,847 |
| University of California, Los Angeles | Los Angeles | $37,885 | $151,540 | $158,497 |
| University of California, Berkeley | Berkeley | $41,318 | $165,272 | $172,859 |
How to use this state view
Start with schools you can realistically attend, not every name in the table. Then open each school page and check the tuition basis. Public schools can change the answer when resident status changes. Private schools remove the residency line but can still vary by housing, program, and grant aid.
Use the calculator to hold housing and grant assumptions steady across schools. That is how you find out whether a difference comes from tuition or from the way you have modeled living costs.
What this page cannot tell you
It cannot tell you admission chances, grant aid, program quality, graduate earnings, or whether a school is worth the price. It gives a dated cost record so the money side of the decision starts with the same facts for every school.