Undergrad question

[peterquill]

He has two options: 1) A UC campus. That would be roughly 30,000 dollars per year. His college has a good track record of transfers to Berkeley and I think there is a good chance he could be accepted there. Option 2) we live right by a nice CSU campus. It is nowhere near as highly ranked as UC obviously. But it is not bad. Tuition there is about 8,000 per year (he could live at home).

I would actually recommend exploring secret option #3: Apply to some of the richly-endowed top private schools such as the Ivies and Stanford that nowadays provide such lavish financial aid packages such that they would actually prove to be substantially cheaper than state schools, especially California state schools, for most families - and are notorious for grade inflation to boot. For example, Harvard states outright that families making up to $150k need contribute no more than 10% of their income, and with no expectation of loans.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-its-cheaper-to-go-to-harvard-than-a-california-state-school/254073/

https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-now-cheaper-san-jose-state/

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1838722,00.html

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/types-aid/loans

Of course, being admitted to such schools is no mean feat indeed. Nevertheless, it might be worth a flyer. All you need is to be admitted to one of those schools.