Cost of College in California

It makes a nice headline: “Cost of college out of control!” But that headline misleads.

You don’t often see this alternative headline: “Family goes into debt, puts child up in Country Club for four years.” But that headline is neither more nor less misleading.

Fact: at the University of California, a year’s room and board costs about the same as a year’s tuition; at a California State University campus, room and board costs almost twice as much as tuition.  But room and board is optional—you could always live at home instead. So what is the true cost of a college degree?

The most accurate headline might be, “Costs soar for teenagers to not work for four years while not living at home.” And how sympathetic would you be toward this political platform: “Every child’s birthright is to spend their youth free from wage pressure, while put up in comfy accommodations and provided with constant intellectual stimulation.”  Hmmm.

A disaggregated approach to the cost of college helps clarify your choices, particularly if you have a special situation.  For instance, many college professors receive tuition remission—their child can attend Mom or Dad’s school for zero tuition cost. Or there may be athletic scholarships. These families have to take a disaggregated approach to see how cost varies across all their options. After all, what right thinking young person wants to attend Dad’s school? And how much is a tuition-only scholarship worth?

The table below lays out the components of the cost of attending college in California today.  After the tables, I consider the cost of various permutations.

Lower division—years 1 & 2
Per year:	Community College, live at home	Cal State, in dorm	University of California, in dorm	Private University, in dorm
Tuition	$1,000	$  8,000	$14,000	$45,000
Room & Board	—	$14,000	$14,000	$14,000
Books etc	$1,000	$  1,000	$  1, 000	$  1,000
TOTAL / first 2 years	$4,000	$46,000	$58,000	$120,000

 

Upper division—years 3 & 4
Per year:	Community College, live at home	Cal State, in dorm	University of California, in dorm	Private University, in dorm
Tuition	—	$  8,000	$14,000	$45,000
Room & Board	—	$14,000	$14,000	$14,000
Books etc	—	$  1,000	$  1, 000	$  1,000
TOTAL / second 2 years	—	$46,000	$58,000	$120,000

All in:

Four year total, no community college	—	$92,000	$116,000	$240,000
Benchmark: Cost to attend college, no tuition	$60,000

Now here are the permutations, ranked from least to most expensive, with comments

Option	Cost	Comments
1.     Attend Mom/Dad’s college, live at home 4 years	$4,000	A bit misleading—you still have to feed the child.  But the typical cost analysis does not take that into account, so I won’t either
2.     2 years community college, then 2 years at Mom/Dad’s college, live at home throughout	$6,000	All options that include community college can be cost-effective
3.     2 years community college living at home, two years at Cal State living at home	$18,000	All options where the student lives at home are very reasonable
4.     2 years community college living at home, then two years Mom & Dad’s college, living in dorm	$30,000	Note how the cost jumps as soon as the student lives some years on campus, even when tuition is free.
5.     2 years community college living at home, then two years at UC, living at home	$30,000	Not an option, of course, unless you live near a UC campus. But imagine a UCLA or UC Berkeley degree, for that total cost!
6.     4 years at Cal State, living at home	$36,000	Several Cal State schools enjoy strong reputations, while still accepting students that did not get all As in high school.  High value for the dollar.
7.     2 years community college living at home, then two years Cal State, living in dorm	$50,000	Now things start to get expensive. A less prestigious degree, for almost twice the cost as #5, because … room and board!
8.     4 years at UC, living at home	$60,000	Best price value relationship, cost for quality received
9.     2 years community college living at home, then two years UC, living in dorm	$62,000	Note the small differential in cost over #7, despite UC tuition being almost twice as high as Cal State.  Room and board!
10.  4 years at Cal State, all in dorm	$92,000	Note increment over #9, and how this is almost as expensive as #11, because … room and board!
11.  2 years community college living at home, then two years at a private university, living at home	$96,000	Most private universities in California charge about the same tuition, $45,000 to $50,000.  That is expensive! But total cost is just a bit more than #10
12.  4 years at UC, all in dorm	$116,000	That not cheap, but a UC degree doesn’t have to cost that much—compare #5 and #8, to see the role played by room and board
13.  4 years at a private university, live at home	$184,000	Ouch! But compare #14 for the truly painful case
14.  4 years at a private university, live in dorms	$240,000	Or $260,000, if tuition is $50K, as is not uncommon (e.g., USC). Note that the cost to attend an out of state flagship public university (e.g., UMichigan) would be about the same as attending an in state private school

Note: approximate 2016 prices

Commentary

Panicked accounts in the popular press tend to focus on options #10 and higher, and above all, option #14.

But the table shows that college doesn’t start to get really expensive until the student lives some years in a dorm.

To expand: options #9 and below will often require no student loans.  To graduate debt-free, here the student must kick in $20,000 from four years of summer jobs, and the parents must kick in $10,000 to $50,000—doable, for many home-owning, dual income California parents.  The student graduates with no loans, and a solid degree.  Where is the crisis?

Conversely, families electing options #10 and higher, and taking on loans to do it, are essentially financing room and board—taking on onerous debt, to put the child up at the country club.  Pity.

Yes, I understand it’s not the same college experience, if you live at home instead of in a freshman dorm. And living away from home at college was a formative experience for me, life-changing, which I wouldn’t trade for the world. I expect to indulge my children in the same experience.

I’m happy to send my children to live in a dorm / away from home for all 4 years, because I can afford to do that without borrowing. But I make a very good income, more than most middle class people.

Is it a national tragedy, if families have to take on debt to fund four years at the country club? Should every middle class child have the right to live four years on campus?

Don’t get me wrong: I very much want my children to have the benefit of living on campus. But this has more to do with class expectations and aspirations than with higher education per se.

There can be no universal right to an all-expenses-paid four years, free of the burden of paid employment, at the end of adolescence.

Caveats

This analysis will be cold comfort if you are a Californian who does not live within commuting range of any Cal State or UC campus.

And if you live in some sad sack of a state where the taxpayers disdained to build a magnificent system of public education, as has California, then indeed, the cost for your child to attend a decent school, worthy of their level of academic performance, may break you.  But that’s not a crisis in the cost of college. That’s a crisis in the willingness of you and your fellow state citizens to fund public goods. You resolve that kind of problem at the ballot box.