San Marcos is in a very good area of the county but very expensive in the North county.
“Most people don’t pay sticker price, & low-income families such as mine” Yes, they do pay sticker. Where did you get that insane idea??? California is very “different” from other states; we have so many weird laws and statutes in the state and counties that are approved by the voters to equalize the “playing” field. Making uninformed blanket statements, like that, shows your naivety. Maybe Jersey does that, but we have too many laws and consumer advocate groups, for public information, that prevents anything like that. We don’t have swap meet prices and deals. It’s pay what is stated.
California is out of money for education, Governor Brown, under pressure from taxpayers, has made it a priority to fund California taxpayers for their educations, so the schools have to charge and make up for fees through OOS charges.
You are OOS and they will charge sticker. There are no discounts. Low income state residents get charged the same rates for education but have those fees are paid for through our multiple instate programs. Your prices will not be lowered since that would encourage more than hundreds of thousands of OOS students to flee their states and come to California and stretch our state budget. The state won’t allow that. We have extreme laws on public information especially on fees.
You cannot register for classes until all fees are paid. They will drop you from classes immediately if something is missing. They can’t accommodate low-income OOS students because they can barely accommodate instate students. Everyone wants to come to California, and the schools know this. They stick to the fees.
North county is expensive. The areas that seem cheap, are that way for a police blogger reason.