A Bicycle Ride up the hill by the University of San Diego today got me thinking about the costs of college education, and I realized I haven’t been paying much attention since I retired from the business of education, so I went home and checked costs on the Internet.  I learned that two-thirds of students who go to college don’t graduate in four years.  Forty percent of students in college drop out — many with substantial debt.   I was/am shocked.  Here’s what I found:

Costs for a student entering college in the 2015-16 full-year, annual tuition and fees for Californians at “public” school tend to be nearing $35,000 with tuition and fees at private universities like the Catholic University of San Diego costs close to $50,000.  The annual cost of college for the first two years at any of California’s Community Colleges is just over a thousand dollars plus fees.  If a student lives at home the total coast each year may be close to three thousand dollars compared with annual cost of around $30,000 for the student who chooses to live at the four-year public university; so it definitely makes sense to try to get the first two years of college at the lower rate.  Of course, those are the figures for students who are already citizens of the state of California. The Catholic University of California comes in over $50,000 each year.  Point Loma Nazarine University costs over $44,000 dollars a year. 

The annual cost for the University of California at any of its campuses is approximately $33,000 for the student who lives on campus.  Students who live off campus usually pay more. It doesn’t take much to push the annual cost of public university to $40,000, so some planning needs to be done while the student is still in high school.