At a time when standardized scoring was more widely important in college admission, the profiles for the UCs were scattered. In this analysis, UCs placed as high as 37th nationally and as low as 338th (with one not appearing):
Tuition has increased. UCSC is showing $18,285 and Housing and Meals $18,783 (I’m assuming a triple as they don’t have any other type available at UCSC lol).
The numbers quoted for books and supplies and medical insurance is always a little on the high side, but you’re still near $40k for 2023.
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Wouldn’t the FAFSA EFC go way down for each student if you have 3 students in public universities at the same time and thus triggering some aid?
You didn’t mention the major. UCSC could be worth $15K/yr if CSU Chico is the alternative. CC & Transfer into UC is another option that would lower costs.
It is not about brand name or ranking of the university, checkout employability (say LinkedIn) or College Scorecard for average salary for that major after graduation. If grad studies are on the cards for that major then UCSC undergrad might help to.
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I think this is a great thing to examine–how many “free” electives a student can take. Nice that UC Berkeley has a high %. Cal just went up a notch in my eyes so I’m glad you did the analysis! I like the idea of student being able to take lots of interesting subjects instead of ONLY classes for their major, like it’s job training only.
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FYI, the result is going to be HIGHLY dependent on the student’s major and APs. At some schools we found that there were quite different results between majors, even within the engineering school. It’s actually really interesting to examine and calculate, so I recommend students do the analysis themselves to check it out! 
This topic is great, which made me think and now I have Q’s.
I wonder how the quality of education for the lowest ranking UCR and UCM?
Are que academic rigor, high standards and competitiveness at the same level of UCB, UCLA or even the middle ones ?
And, then besides student’s experiences, how the quality of education could be measure for UCR/UCM?
OT. How to compare the UCR/UCM to SLO and SDSU? (please disregard the research opportunities and lack of advanced degrees) I’m referring to the undergrad academic rigor/high expectations.
How does a student do this? What are the steps for them to start analyzing? They go to each school’s web site, click to their potential majors, then…?
It’s a bit time consuming, so I would suggest doing this once you have narrowed down a short list of schools and majors.
Collect:
- Information on the major requirements
- Information on general education requirements
- Information on AP credits
We made a spreadsheet with list of all courses required for the major and general education, with units for each course. There will also be requirements like “15 units technical electives” so include that in the spreadsheet. Then mark off the classes covered by AP credits and deduct those credits.
Once you have a total number of credits required for the degree, subtract it from the total hours required for a degree (120 for semester system, 180 for quarter system)**. That gives you “free units.” To compare between schools, we compared free units as a percentage of total units.
It’s a valuable exercise also because it requires the student to look closely at the curriculum and degree requirements. It’s really interesting to see the similarities and differences across universities.
** Note: You can also experiment with adjusting the total hours up and down to see how the percentage of free units is affected by taking more or fewer units. The 120/180 hours assumes 15 units per semester. Particularly for engineering degrees, some universities’ four-year plans assume students are going to be taking a lot of units per semester (17-18 or more… some four-year plans will even show example semesters with 19-20 units).
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When my DS3 was selecting a college he looked at the requirements for the major carefully. He’s a CS major and is great at Computer Science classes but dislikes Chem and Physics and other sciences. Therefore he looked for CS programs that required Chem OR Physics instead of Chem AND Physics. He also eliminated a college in New Orleans that required a year of foreign language (he disliked that too) for a CS degree. Things like that.
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Absolutely!! Sure they are large publics with all that entails: large classes with a hundred to hundreds of students, upper-division classes of 75-100 for popular majors like Econ, little personal attention, counseling generally whoever is at the window when you show up in line, understaffed units like career counseling, often not enough university housing for all 4 years, and so on. Probably not that different from your in-state U system.
But as a CA taxpayer I can assure you we love OOS students! OOS students are always full-pay and the $125K or more each one contributes in OOS fees helps keep UC afloat.
This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Are labs the difference between degrees that average 19-20 credits versus 15? What is the reason for the difference in semesters with a higher number of units? (My degree was not in engineering, it’s why I ask.)
Some degree programs simply require a very high number of units to complete! For example, if you look at the plans for UCB’s MET program, a typical semester includes 18-20 units, so you can see that it would be difficult for a student to squeeze in additional free electives. (Not a program that my son applied to, just an example of a high unit requirement degree program 
) Click through to look at the different tracks here: Academics - Berkeley M.E.T.
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No our FAFSA EFC doesn’t go down because our eldest graduates just as our youngest starts - we didn’t plan that very well lol.
The two degrees my daughter is looking at are VERY similar. UCSC Games and Playable Media (top #10) and CSU Chico Computer Animation and Game Development (Top #20). There is very little that separate the two.
CSU Chico is not impacted, does not have a housing shortage, admits you straight into the major (not a pre-major like UCSC), has smaller class sizes, professors instead of TA’s, offered her honors, is located within walking distance to downtown and has an awesome ski club - under 3 hours to Tahoe (my daughter is an avid skiier), has internship opportunities just like UCSC.
UCSC has a brand name. Is that brand name worth $15K more a year? It is certainly not worth CC and Transfer and missing out on the four year experience that my daughter wants, just to graduate with UC on her diploma.
We are not a family who cares about such things. The only time it would become important is if it made a significant difference to her future and I am yet to be convinced. That is why we will visit both admitted student days and do our research before we make a decision. We certainly won’t be making any decisions based on name alone.
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Thanks for all this helpful information. Your spreadsheet sounds awesome and intimidating! What advice do you have on determining which AP classes a school with give credit for?
You should be able to get pretty far by just doing a google search for:
- (school name) AP credit
- (school name) (major name) curriculum
- (school name) gen ed requirements
Note that there may be different AP credit policies for different situations (for example UCSD’s residential colleges apply AP credits to their gen ed requirements differently) so you may have to dig a bit deeper.
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I’ve recently learned that UC Davis and UCLA are quite stingy in accepting AP credits for anything other than general credit toward college graduation (they are “empty” credits). The other UCs are more generous, and the AP credits can actually “count” to replace specific college GE requirements. This is important for my DD and is one of her “cons” of UCD as she weighs her decision. (But she has many more “pros.”)
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I wouldn’t say they are completely empty.
Both my daughters entered with Sophomore status using their AP exam results which bumped them up the priority list for a pass time to schedule classes. They haven’t had any problem getting classes. My eldest was actually ready to graduate in 3 years but she chose to stay and add a minor to her degree because she wasn’t emotionally ready to graduate.
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Was that at Davis? Davis is one of the schools my daughter is considering. At UCLA they really weren’t that useful except to get him out of language and writing requirements. He has a lot of credits via AP but they aren’t applicable to GEs, and they didn’t count to move up his registration at all.
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Yes at Davis
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I disagree that AP credits give better Pass Time (class reg) at Davis.
Mostly, the AP credits can help fill Elective units needed to get to 180 for graduation. There are some limited uses of AP to get out of a GE requirement, but it depends on College and major.
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