Is UC Berkeley worth paying the full price?
I am out of state and have recently gotten admitted to UC Berkeley and NYU, for bioengineering, and I couldn’t be more grateful!! My future goals are to attend medical school and hopefully go down the neurosurgeon path, so I know that big medical school fees are in my future. Unfortunately my parents are only able to pay around 20k each year, so if I pay the full price, I will have to go ~60 to 80 thousand dollars in debt every year if I go to Berkeley or NYU. I’m very devastated and torn on whether or not it’s worth it. I’m not in a great situation for any of my other schools either, as I have received no financial aid at any other schools other than UC Irvine (15k scholarship) and UC Davis (25k). If I go to my state school, it will cost around 38k which is more doable for my family, but their biology program isn’t as good and they don’t offer biomedical engineering. I’m also on the Harvard waitlist. I’m extremely torn and unsure where to go to college, and any insight would be much appreciated.
Posted Mar 27, 2026, 8:15 PM UTC