The Cost of Learning

Source: https://ticas.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy-files/pub_files/what_college_costs_for_low-income_californians.pdf

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You probably saw the LA Times recent piece on public concerns about the affordability of college education in California.* The online version of the story includes the chart above which shows the NET costs of attending. Net cost is what students are actually paying - not just the sticker price for tuition. Although the story focused on what people thought was the case, the actual net cost was a kind of buried lede in the article.

Since the small print above may not be clear, here is what it says:

The total cost of college includes far more than tuition and fees. Textbooks, transportation, food, and housing are all costs of attending college. The net prices shown here – for each of the nine undergraduate-serving campuses of the University of California and nearby California State University and community college campuses – reflect the colleges’ own estimates of what low-income students have to pay, after subtracting available grant aid, to cover total college costs.  Colleges with low tuition may not have low net prices, and colleges with high tuition may not have high net prices. In none of the nine regions shown here does the lowest tuition school – the community college – have the lowest net price, and  in seven regions the community college is more expensive than either public university option.

For the chart above, and for UCLA, the comparisons are:

UCLA: $8,800

Cal State LA: $12,100

Santa Monica College: $13,700

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*https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-09/californians-say-uc-and-csu-tuition-is-unaffordable-despite-financial-aid.