I am a California resident and work with underserved students on college admissions. Even if you are granted in-state status, I wanted to let you know that UC financial aid this year is not very generous. My students with an efc of $0 had the UC’s require them to take out between $8k to $11k in loans each year. For this reason my very low-income California resident students are not attending any UC this year. That amount was what we arrived at with taking any of the “fat” out of a student’s budget. The primary grant the UC’s give is Cal Grant A and the amount hasn’t kept up with the rising UC costs.
Second, I was just by Cal and was shocked to see what off-campus places cost up there so I don’t think you can get any cheaper than what it costs to live off campus. My youngest is working in Houston this summer and living in Texas is much cheaper than Cal.
Third, CS is highly impacted so plan it taking at least three years to get your degree because you are going to have trouble getting the classes you want.
I know that this may not be the news you want to hear but be smart by it. 90% of my students listen to me and just this past week I had the one family who did not. They had their child attend a college completely unaffordable to them when the student had good scholarships elsewhere. Well after one year they have no money to continue since the “magical money they hoped for never materialized and all the we can spend less failed”, now the student has to transfer to a cc and the little they saved is gone.