California Academic Quality per Dollar Ranking

These are the California schools which appear on CollegeCalc's Best Value Colleges in America ranking and represent the colleges providing the finest education balanced against an affordable average net price. The best value in California ranking goes to University of California Los Angeles with a 97th percentile national academic rank for a comparatively affordable $12,510 average net price.

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 rating methodology.

All price data are reprinted from the U.S. Department of Education's 2017-2018 IPEDS Survey and reflect reported costs for the 2017-2018 academic year.

California's Best Value Colleges by Academic Quality per Dollar

Average Net Price	College	Rating	$Value
$12,510 Average Net Price	1) University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles, Public Not For Profit	97	87
$12,072 Average Net Price	2) University of California Irvine Irvine, Public Not For Profit	90	86
$13,693 Average Net Price	3) University of California San Diego La Jolla, Public Not For Profit	94	85
$13,635 Average Net Price	4) Soka University of America Aliso Viejo, Private Not For Profit	92	85
$14,966 Average Net Price	5) University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, Public Not For Profit	92	83
$16,655 Average Net Price	6) University of California Berkeley Berkeley, Public Not For Profit	97	82
$16,231 Average Net Price	7) University of California Davis Davis, Public Not For Profit	90	82
$16,783 Average Net Price	8) California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, Public Not For Profit	91	81
$14,759 Average Net Price	9) University of California Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, Public Not For Profit	80	81
$17,952 Average Net Price	10) Stanford University Stanford, Private Not For Profit	99	81
$19,205 Average Net Price	11) Pomona College Claremont, Private Not For Profit	98	80
$23,982 Average Net Price	12) Claremont McKenna College Claremont, Private Not For Profit	97	75
$26,910 Average Net Price	13) California Institute of Technology Pasadena, Private Not For Profit	98	72
$19,770 Average Net Price	14) Thomas Aquinas College Santa Paula, Private Not For Profit	69	71
$27,644 Average Net Price	15) Pepperdine University Malibu, Private Not For Profit	91	69
$31,189 Average Net Price	16) University of Southern California Los Angeles, Private Not For Profit	97	67
$33,137 Average Net Price	17) Harvey Mudd College Claremont, Private Not For Profit	97	65
$32,746 Average Net Price	18) Occidental College Los Angeles, Private Not For Profit	90	63
$32,482 Average Net Price	19) University of San Diego San Diego, Private Not For Profit	84	61
$36,645 Average Net Price	20) Santa Clara University Santa Clara, Private Not For Profit	89	59

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