He’s not and I worry that, if paying will depend on loans, the father’s misplaced sense of prestige* would sink the family finances and force OP to drop out or affect the rest of the family.
In addition, because that is both authoritarian and manipulative, OP’s father may well continue to try and manipulate her through money.
UCB is a GREAT school so, in that, OP is lucky that school struck the dad’s fancy, but I worry about the ramifications.
In any case, OP should NOT cosign loans.
(if you have to take on loans, at least i should be for the school you chose. If your father wants you to go to UCB, he should shoulder the financial burden, not you.)
If refusing to cosign means you have to take a gap year, so be it.
Cosigned loans (forced upon kids or not) are like toxic chewing gum you can’t ever get rid of and burning/hurting you for ever and ever, even when you’re dead they pursue your parents or your children.
- because objectively they're peer schools and for what OP wants to study UVA is actually better.