College Costs in California

How much does it cost to attend college in California?   The average annual in-state college tuition in California was $14,442 for the 2021-2022 academic year. This is $688 lower than the U.S. average and ranks California in the middle of the pack as the 27th most expensive and 26th most affordable state or district to attend college. This is a change of ($146) from the 2019-2020 average of $14,588 and represents a -1% annual decline. The list of California colleges below provides school specific cost and value rating.

Our guide surveyed tuition data from the 279 colleges and universities in California, the most popular being University of California Los Angeles with 43,955 full time students and an in-state tuition list price of $11,442. University of Southern California is the most expensive in California with an in-state tuition of $60,446.

Click on any school for current tuition, future cost estimates, school specific savings plans and estimated student loan payments. California colleges can also be filtered by public, private, community colleges and four year schools. Additionally, cost based sorting is available for the lowest and highest tuition options. Jump directly to our ranking of best values in California or cheap California colleges guide.

<Academic Rating is a CollegeCalc proprietary national percentile ranking of a college's overall difficulty and educational effectiveness. An average score is 50. Dollar value is a measure of a school's academic rating compared with the average net price paid. Colleges which are ranked "n/a" didn't report sufficient data to formulate a score. Learn more about our ratings.

All price data are reprinted from the U.S. Department of Education's 2020-2021 IPEDS Survey and reflect reported costs for the 2021-2022 academic year.

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