The Brief

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, Loyola Marymount, Stanford and USC.

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.

There are exceptions: Stanford, for example, ends up being virtually free for low-income freshmen — those with family incomes below $100,000. USC is also relatively affordable, requiring low-income students to pay an average of about $15,000 after all financial aid is factored in.

But other campuses post much steeper net prices, a term that refers to the total cost of attendance — such as tuition, housing, transportation and food — minus all the state, federal, institutional and outside grants and scholarships students receive. For example, Pepperdine University’s net price for low-income students was more than $36,000 for the 2022-23 school year.

“Every year, we speak with students and families who truly desire to choose Pepperdine but find that it isn’t financially feasible for their family,” wrote Kristin Paredes Collins, who leads enrollment and financial aid at Pepperdine. ”Although we truly believe that Pepperdine is a worthy investment, we acknowledge that it might not be financially feasible for every admitted student.”

She added: “We remind them that they will likely be successful at whatever school they choose.” Pepperdine spent $106 million on financial aid in 2023-24.

Net price calculators that colleges host on their websites can offer more fine-tuned estimates of what students will pay that may show lower costs, including extra school aid for high test scores and high school grades, but the prices still remain relatively high.

CalMatters reporters interviewed 16 students with Pell Grants, the federal financial aid grant for low- and middle-income students, across eight California private nonprofit colleges to learn their struggles and reasons for attending these more expensive institutions.

These students worked 15 to 20 hours a week or more, missed out on campus cultural events and regularly sought additional financial aid by petitioning their colleges and applying for outside support. For most students interviewed, the effort was worth it. The students were motivated by the prestige of their institutions, smaller class sizes and the specific academic programming that other colleges don’t offer. Most students CalMatters spoke with avoided taking out any loans. And quite a few lived at home to avoid costly room and board fees.

Low-income students seem to know what’s more affordable, judging by where they enroll. Only about 27% of the state’s private nonprofit college students received the federal Pell Grant in 2022-23, CalMatters calculations of federal data show. In the University of California system, one-third received the grant that year; nearly half got it at California State University schools. Both public systems, on average, cost less.

Net price for low-income students at Cal State schools was around $6,000 a year and under $10,000 at the UCs, on average, according to a CalMatters analysis of 2021-22 academic year data. One reason they stay more affordable is because they receive about $10 billion annually in state taxpayer support. Private colleges, beyond state financial aid for their students, don’t receive such state subsidies.

“I can’t imagine how a lower-income family can fork up over $80,000 for one student to earn a bachelor’s degree” at a private nonprofit college, said Michael Itzkowitz, a researcher on the value of college. Those private colleges, he added, “continue to be much less affordable for all students in comparison to many of the public institutions located within the state.”

The federal data has limitations: It only has estimates for full-time freshmen who took out federal loans or received federal grants. That excludes many well-off families. The federal government publishes 2022-23 net price data for individual schools, but its data for all campuses for now stops at 2021-22; CalMatters’ school-wide analysis relied on the 2021-22 data.

Why students choose private colleges

Sophomore Monserrat Herrera pays $2,000 a semester to attend Dominican University in the San Francisco Bay Area — a fraction of what she’d owe had she lived on campus. Instead, she commutes about 11 miles to campus from home in Novato. Though she got into several UCs and Cal States, Dominican is closest and offers a bachelor’s nursing program that admits freshmen immediately; other schools require students to apply for the nursing program only after their sophomore year.

“I do really like how it’s a direct entry program, so I don’t have to go through applying to nursing school again,” she said.

But not all students have found the effort to afford their education as manageable. Erykah Glass worked a midnight to 6 a.m. graveyard shift to afford her on-campus housing costs during her sophomore year at the University of San Francisco. “It affected my mental health, which then affected my school work,” she said.

Her top cost, tuition, was covered through the school’s Black Scholars program. Still, now in her junior year, she’ll pay around $7,000 per semester for housing, she said.

Glass has found time between work and school to join the campus’ women’s club soccer team, though the demands of her schedule means she’s only able to make practice on Mondays. She hasn’t been available to play during games.

“I went head on into this semester knowing I wouldn’t have any breaks,” Glass said.

The federal data on the net price of attending college strips a lot of nuance from what students are expected to pay. At the University of La Verne, 57% of full-time freshmen attending the school lived at home in 2021-22, said Laura Evans, director of financial aid at the school. Among the low-income students who receive Pell Grants, 59% lived at home.

That probably means those students aren’t paying rent, but the federal government’s cost calculations still assume the student has a housing expense. For that reason, Evans likes to draw a distinction between realized costs and paper costs that don’t actually materialize for students.

For the students living at home, their realized costs are chiefly tuition and fees, which are about $48,000 a year at La Verne.

For the commuter students who are low-income, the financial aid they received overall in 2021-22 covered much of their actual costs — all but $9,780. That’s a relatively manageable net price for freshmen.

Evans said that to cover that lower net price, about $5,500 can come from federal student loans, leaving about $4,200 in remaining net costs. Money from part-time work could clear the difference. With minimum wage at $16.50 an hour, a student would need to work about 5 hours a week for the whole year to cover that remaining bill.

That’s all lower than the official net price for the school that the federal government publishes: Around $26,000 in 2021-22.

“That’s one of the reasons why they choose La Verne. It’s because they can afford to be commuters,” said Evans, who added that unlike many other colleges, La Verne does not require its freshmen to live on campus. In 2023, the school of 5,600 students spent about $62 million on student financial aid — more than a third of its total revenue from tuition and fees. Portions of the school’s investment returns from its endowment also help fund student scholarships.

Left: Leandra Cardenas, a psychology student, inside University Hall at Loyola Marymount University. Right: Kelvin Nguyen, an undergraduate alumnus of USC, is currently a public health graduate student at UCLA.

(

Jules Hotz

/

CalMatters

)

Living at home — it’s often the secret sauce to make a private college education pencil out for low-income students.

It’s what made the difference for second-year student Leandra Cardenas to afford attending Loyola Marymount. By residing with her dad, she attends the university practically for free because state, federal and campus grants cover tuition. Cardenas wakes up early to spend up to two hours on the bus commuting from Hollywood to her 8 a.m. class. She drives some days, sharing a car with her father, but says the cost of gas is expensive. Living on-campus in a double at Loyola Marymount costs around $14,000 per year, the school’s website shows. “I wasn’t going to put that financial burden” on her parents, she said.

Working makes a difference too

It’s not just long commutes; low-income students must also work, pouring more hours of the day into jobs rather than soaking in the benefits of campus life. In her first year at USC, senior Mika Panahon spent only two days on campus so that she could work at grocery stores and fast-food restaurants. She needed to cover the cost of food and transportation even though she had almost all of her tuition covered through financial aid.

“I packed my whole schedule into a 10-hour day here so that I can have more time to be at my job,” Panahon said.

Her total cost of attendance the last two academic years was $87,000 in fall 2023 and $95,000 this year. Between aid from the university, the state and federal government, the cost she was responsible for was about $15,500 each year, according to financial aid statements from USC she shared with CalMatters. The school expected her to take out loans and work part time through the federal work-study program, leaving her on the hook for $4,000 each year. To make up the difference, she had to work.

The effort is worth it

Are the long commutes, demanding work schedules and extra time in the financial aid office worth the price of a private college education? A majority of the students CalMatters spoke to said yes.

Students said that the smaller class sizes that private schools offer compared with public schools have allowed them to foster better relationships with their professors.

Cardenas says Loyola Marymount gave her access to making “more personalized and individual” connections through its smaller class sizes, which originally drew her to the school.

For recent USC graduate Kelvin Nguyen, coming from a low-income household led by parents who were refugees from Vietnam, attending USC was an obvious choice.

“You apply to the schools that you think would make them proud,” Nguyen said. USC gave him the “blueprint” to navigate the top-tier professional and consulting worlds of business that he wants to break into.

Even with the hardship of working three jobs simultaneously and taking out $15,000 in loans to afford to live on and near campus, Nguyen believes USC put him in the position for his success today. He’s now earning a master’s in public health at UCLA. Knowing that he was the first in his family to attend a prestigious private university, Nguyen said, he “put in whatever financial or physical or mental resources to make it.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

(

J.W. Hendricks

/

The LA Local

)

In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.