Attending one of California’s top colleges and universities can come with a steep price tag.
For the 2025-26 school year, a first-year student at Stanford University this fall faces a bill of over $96,000 for tuition, housing and other costs, not accounting for financial aid. For California residents, the total cost for cross-town rival UC Berkeley comes in much lower, at around $46,000 — despite higher estimated costs for housing and food.
That’s according to data the San Francisco Chronicle compiled on the costs of attendance for the 2025-26 school year for nearly 50 select California colleges. The data includes a range of institutions, including private universities and liberal arts colleges ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report, as well as public universities in the California State University and University of California systems.
Cost is often not that simple. Public in-state and private are apples and oranges. Article has no mention of the all-important Net Price Calculator, which would be a public service to mention.
One other note, it’s not clear whether cost for the same year is being considered. the article mentions data coming from Common Data Sets or from college websites. The most recent Common Data Set data may lag behind the cost of attendance published on the website, by a year or more.
A Quick Look at the Stanford and Cal websites shows that the Stanford number in the graphic is precisely what is on their website. The Student Budget : Stanford University
The Cal number is in the same range, but not what is on their website. https://financialaid.berkeley.edu/how-aid-works/student-budgets-cost-of-attendance/
The graphic does acknowledge that it is comparing costs without financial aid. I haven’t read the article, but the headline re price tags “soaring” seems to invoke a steep increase in price tags, which I don’t think is the case. I think it has been more of a steady climb in recent years.
The Chronicle article doesn’t include the cost of the health insurance plan.
Students with health insurance (for example, kids still on their parents’ health insurance) can waive the cost of the health insurance plan. (I have a kid at Cal and we waive it.)
I don’t have a chronicle subscription so can’t read the article, but did notice that in the graphic. From what people have told me here, if the kid is insured by their parents already, typically can get health insurance waived. If that is true, it makes sense they do not include it.
Exactly. Average net college cost (after all discounting whether need or merit based aid) has been decreasing for over a decade ( it sure how it looks for CA colleges specifically.) Average discount rate for first year full time undergrads is 56.3%.
Yup. The headline reads as if they are just trying to get clicks. There is nothing earthshattering about the UC or Stanford tuition this year (again, I couldn’t read the article). And outside a few of the most in demand privates in the state (Stanford, several of the Claremonts, maybe others?), the vast majority of the privates give out merit aid in addition to need based aid to lower the cost for most people. I think Stanford, CMC and Pomona have a decent number of students paying the full cost with no chance of merit though. But those are the outliers who do not offer merit money.
Agreed. And full pay families generally have the choice to attend a school where their student would get a discount.
If a full pay family is going for prestige (no shade) then the gross cost increases at schools that don’t offer merit can make a difference in affordability, at least at the margin.
Full pay students are more likely to have parents who have insurance that can continue to cover the student. However, if the parent insurance network does not cover providers near campus, then it may not be very usable.
High financial aid need students are less likely to have such insurance, but UCB’s net price calculator does show that the campus insurance cost is included in cost of attendance and included in in-state financial aid coverage.
Of course, the demographics of these forums skew toward full pay (or at least full pay for in state public), so list prices may appear to be more relevant to forum users than college students generally.
That makes sense. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Totally agree! For full-pay and ‘donut-hole’ families (and there are plenty of them where I live - and, as you point out, they’re likely overrepresented here on CC), the frequently repeated mantra that net prices have been falling is meaningless.
As prices continue to go up, there will be the top wealthy and the middle/lower income for T20 schools that dont offer merit aid.
Many upper income affluent families will soon be priced out of the elite schools, especially if they have multiple kids.
There will be some interesting dynamics in terms of socio-economic diversity.
If you dont qualify for aid, in order for a full pay family to pay for 2 kids attending a top 20 university ($400k each, $800k total), they would have to earn about $1.3-$1.5 million just to pay for college.
Nobody wakes up one day with a 17 year old. And unless you are truly in the stratosphere income wise, nobody expects to “cash flow” college.
We all have an 18 year head start on college expenses- whether it’s to your state flagship, the local branch of the state college system, or a T-20 with no merit aid. Some people are able to take advantage of the 18 year head start and others cannot; some COULD but choose not to.
I see people happily bragging that they’ve spent $25K-40K on their kids sport over the last two years- travel to competitions, equipment, private training etc. My kids learned to swim at the local Y and kicked a ball around the public playground. These are choices. 25K into college savings, or for a private coach? Other people do the “false modesty” bit that “we had to take our ski vacation in February when the prices are the highest, because Spouse insisted that we do a cruise over Christmas week”. I have no idea what these things cost- but we had a blast renting a cottage at a state park for a week in the summer. I’ll guess that skiing in Aspen costs more.
People make choices. And the choice to save– when there is disposable income- makes many more educational choices possible. Yeah, I know- some people have only made their big salary in the last few years. Couldn’t save. Had to live in pricey neighborhood for better schools. Couldn’t drive a 10 year reliable Honda with low maintenance and insurance costs because what would the neighbors think. Little Joey “needed” a brand new Jeep when he turned 16.
I’ve heard it all. And fortunately, there are choices that DON’T cost 100K per year for the families who make too much for aid but can’t cash flow or didn’t save. I’ll save my angst for the children of the low income families- since our policy makers seem to no longer care that these kids cannot afford their own state U’s, even if their parents have been paying taxes for decades.
Low income families pay no federal income taxes. Any FICA taxes they pay, they get a disproportionate benefit in the way social security is calculated.
Your talking federal. I’m talking state– their parents pay sales tax like everyone else. State taxes are what supports our higher ed colleges.
FICA has nothing to do with the fact that low income people in PA cannot afford their flagship state university.
The “everyone had 18 years to save” idea sounds straightforward, but it oversimplifies things. Many families don’t get 18 financially stable years: job loss, medical bills, divorce, caring for relatives, or simply living in a high-COL area can wipe out any theoretical savings window. Higher income doesn’t automatically mean large disposable income.
And pointing to ski trips or club sports assumes most families who can’t fully fund college spent irresponsibly. That’s a small subset, not the norm. For many, wages haven’t kept pace with housing, childcare, healthcare, etc. which have risen far faster than even diligent saving can realistically cover for a lot of families.
I’m sure we all agree that low-income students face the biggest barriers, but that doesn’t require assuming that any middle or upper-middle-income family who can’t afford college must have made bad choices. Real life is more complicated than that.
Colleges dont get federal funding?
Lets assume a family makes $30k a year. How much state income taxes are they paying? How much sales tax are they paying?
How much did it cost the state to educate their kids for 12 years?
No one is saying low income kids shouldnt deserve an opportunity to attend the finest schools. However, the argument theyre paying taxes IMO is disingenous.
There’s a reason why economists consider Sales Taxes to be the most regressive form of taxation- the “bite” out of a low wage earner is proportionally MUCH higher than that of a higher earner. Obviously, someone making 30K isn’t paying the $100K in sales tax on their new boat. But the tax on the floor mop, bath towel, etc. hits them MUCH higher, even though the 7% or whatever is charged to both rich and low income.
I find your argument about the “state” educating their kids for the last 12 years quite curious. If you don’t believe in universal K-12 education as a core responsibility of government- then fine, you are entitled to your opinion. But then why the angst over the higher income folks who can’t afford the college of their choice? Private institutions get to charge what they want. Public institutions get to pick and choose among the populace as to who they believe are “worthy” of educating- is that your argument?
In my state, the primary driver of the public school, K-12 financing is property taxes, which are locally determined, collected, and budgeted. Not the state. Just an FYI. The fiscal role played by the state is often a curious one. Someone finds asbestos while fixing a hole in the roof- there are likely state grants which can be applied to environmental remediation. But the day in, day out costs of instruction are paid for by the local municipality. So no, the “state” hasn’t paid to educated the children of low income families.