UC Berkeley vs private schools (undergraduate humanities)

I do not feel that way. However, you should note that UCB offers strong courses and curricula, delivered in an economy-class manner (e.g. large class sizes, though you should check on-line schedules to see what class sizes actually are for your major courses at each school, rather than making general assumptions*). For some students, that is perfectly fine.

But many posters on these forums prefer the LAC model, with small classes (even at the introductory level), though often at the cost of fewer course offerings or courses offered infrequently. The private LACs that are heavily favored by many posters here also tend to be expensive (some have good financial aid, some less so); some public LACs may be less expensive, but many of the LAC advocates rarely mention them (most of the public ones have low prestige value and low admission selectivity).

*Based on http://classes.berkeley.edu/search/class/?f[0]=im_field_term_name%3A770&f[1]=im_field_subject_area%3A12 , it looks like lower level philosophy courses can be huge (hundreds), while upper level ones are often smaller (commonly around 45), each supplementing the typically 3 hours per week with faculty with 1 hour per week with a TA in discussion sections of around 15.