Smaller class sizes, grassy knolls, campus idyll—for low-income college students chasing that storied experience at California’s private nonprofit colleges, the expense is high: sometimes $30,000 or more in the first year alone after all grants and scholarships are considered.
While most California college students attend a public college or university, roughly 160,000 undergraduates pursue degrees at private nonprofit universities such as Chapman University, Loyola Marymount University, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
And low-income freshmen on average paid around $21,000 to attend private campuses for just one year in 2021-22, according to a CalMatters analysis of federal college costs data using the most recent year of information available. It used to be even higher, adjusted for inflation in 2023-24 dollars: The price students pay has declined by a few thousand dollars since data-keeping began in 2008-09, the CalMatters analysis shows. For its analysis, CalMatters defined low-income as a household income below $48,000.
Read more at CalMatters.
