<p>I went to Berkeley this weekend and went on a tour of the housing facilities. I saw the Wada apartments (which are really nice, BTW). Someone in my group asked one of the guys how much he pays and he said about $850/mo. That seemed pretty reasonable until I came home and checked the Cal housing site. The 09-10 prices for Wada range from $11,600-$15,495. So, the absolute minimum is going to be $1290 per month?! Am I missing something or is that a huge price difference? Did Cal really hike up the rate this year or something? That seems like an insane amount of money, especially considering the fact that you have to share a bedroom with 1 or 2 other people.</p>
<p>Yeah, been up there too. My friend also was in WADA last year, and she was paying $900, but $11,600-15,495?! Geez. I need to get to working now!!</p>
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<p>I don’t know if you guys notice, I just found out that the tuition for UCB is apparently higher than other UCS. If you check your financial awards, you can see the total cost is actually based on OFF-campus tuition, which I believe is around $23000-24000 a year.
So if we add on the living cost, let’s say we live in Wada APT, the total cost for us to study at UCB will be $23000+12000= $35000/year at least…</p>
<p>If this housing plan doesn’t include meal plan, then we can expect over $40000 cost per year… I am in engineering major, and generally the students in engineering major need to have 2.5 to 3 years to graduate…This means the cost to get a degree from UCB will be up to 6 digits…</p>
<p>I hope I am calculating it wrong…</p>
<p>meal plans and housing should be included in the total cost of tuition. </p>
<p>at ucsb the meal plan was included with housing…hopefully it’s the same at cal…</p>
<p>Michael-That is not correct. If you are a CA resident, you pay in-state tuition, which is approx $9k per year. When you look at your financial aid award, UCB factors living expenses into your award. $23k is the TOTAL it should cost you to attend UCB. That includes tuition (aka fees), room and board, books, misc expenses, etc. Obviously, this is just an average that they have decided is reasonable. Some of us will definitely require more (or less) than this amount. So, if you take the 9k for tuition out of the 23k, you have 14k to live on. Look here: <a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm[/url]”>http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm</a></p>
<p>My problem is that if living in UCB housing is as expensive as it states on their website, there isn’t going to be much $$ to live on afterward, esp if their housing is $15k for the school year. It’s also a huge difference from what people seem to be paying this year $850-900/mo = $7650-8100/9 mo school year.</p>
<p>According to their website the housing at the Wada apartments only costs $8518 for a double occupancy room.</p>
<p>[Living</a> at Cal](<a href=“http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/unit2_wada.html]Living”>http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/unit2_wada.html)</p>
<p>Those rates are for 2008-2009, but I can’t imagine that it shot up $7k.</p>
<p>Oh, are you including a meal plan?</p>
<p>Dem Bones-No, check this out. This is where I found that information. I hope that it is incorrect, it just seems so over priced to me. See here: [Living</a> at Cal - Rates](<a href=“http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/rates.html]Living”>http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/rates.html)</p>
<p>That’s included in your estimate…the 25K or so includes that.</p>
<p>Alright KC, here’s my understanding of it based on the website.</p>
<p>“Unit 2: 1406 students in 6 high rise halls, 31 staff — 4 residence hall towers with co-ed and single gender floors, single, double and triple rooms, and a few triple rooms in suites, 1 mini-suite building with double and triple occupancy bedrooms, 1 apartment building which houses upper-division students.” </p>
<p>I believe that the pricing on the Residence Halls charts is for the people living in the 4 residence hall towers of Unit 2 which includes a meal plan. Those parts of Unit 2 are dorms for Freshman. Which are priced like: [Living</a> at Cal - Rates](<a href=“http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/rates.html]Living”>http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/rates.html)</p>
<p>The people in the Wada apartments high rise are upper-division transfers and do not get a meal-plan with their room. Also I think the people in the apartment building section of the Wada apartments pay the rates seen here: [Living</a> at Cal](<a href=“http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/unit2_wada.html]Living”>http://www.housing.berkeley.edu/livingatcal/unit2_wada.html)</p>
<p>Which explains why people have been saying they pay about 850-900 a month.The Wada apartments are simply located at Unit 2, as explained by the ** on the rates page.</p>
<p>IDK if I’ll be there for in-state tuition. I’m not a green card holder (here under my parents’ business visa), but I’ve been living in California for seven years and am not considered an international student at my community college.</p>
<p>Hoo, thanks sunshine for pointing out i was wrong…Actually I am glad I was wrong
But it still looks expensive to live in UCB though…,</p>
<p>Missy, if you went to a CA high school for now you’ll pay in state rates. There is, however, a case before the CA Supreme Court that challenges the right of anyone without a Green Card to pay in state rates and the case will be heard this year.</p>
<p>I was enrolled in a California HS for two years and then took the CHSPE.
My sister went all four years in a CA high school but has to pay international fees (she goes to a liberal arts college, though).</p>
<p>Dem Bones-Thanks. I hope you are right. I am going to try to call them today or tomorrow and ask for the 09-10 rates. I will post once I find out.</p>
<p>^
Thanks for that! [:</p>
<p>Ok, Dem Bones. It looks like you were right. Here is the pricing for the 09-10 school year:</p>
<p>Wada:
Double occupancy-$8935
Triple-$8143
10 month lease</p>
<p>Channing Bodwich:
Ranges from $943-$1079/mo
12 month lease</p>
<p>Cool, thx for researching it. It went up about $400 since last year.</p>
<p>Sweet! [: </p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>