California Residents' Tuition at UC Berkeley Law, Business Schools Has More Than Doubled Since 2005: Report

Tuition and mandatory fees have more than doubled for California residents at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley's law and business schools since fall 2005, a report published Sunday found.

An analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle of tuition and fee data also found the enrollment of residents at UC Berkeley's Law School and Haas School of Business has fallen sharply over the last decade, while out-of-state enrollment has increased.

The data from the UC Berkeley Office of the Registrar shows the annual price for both schools in 2005 was about $24,000. Now it's more than $52,000 a year for the law school and nearly $58,000 for Haas, prices that approach the annual tuition by some top private schools, The Chronicle's analysis shows.

Only 48 California residents signed up for the full-time MBA program at the Haas business school in fall 2015, compared to 98 a decade ago.

At the law school, new enrollments of California residents went from 201 students enrolled in 2005 to 153 last year.

Some say the university is wrong to charge Californians nearly as much as out-of-state students because residents pay taxes that support the UC system.

"I think it's outrageous," said Paul Monge, 26, a first-year student at the School of Law who serves on the UC Student Association's budget committee. "The UC system has a special obligation to ensure access to California residents, who are products of our public schools and who are committed to contributing to California's workforce."

But Berkeley Law and Haas officials say California's cut in support for UC gave them no choice but to eliminate most of the price break as they seek to maintain quality.

"In previous decades, the state heavily subsidized the cost of an education for California's public university students — thus, California students were able to pay substantially less than out-of-state students who weren't subsidized," said Susan Gluss, spokeswoman for Berkeley Law.

Haas Assistant Dean Stephanie Fujii said the business school's first priority was to maintain quality.

"When California provided more support to us, allowing tuition and fees to be lower, that was a wonderful benefit. But we couldn't lower the level of service," Fujii said.

She and Gluss said both schools offer financial assistance and loan-repayment help to students.