UC Regents Renew the Tuition Stability Plan: What Future Students Will Pay

This article was originally reported in November 2025.

On November 19, 2025, the University of California Board of Regents voted 13-3 to renew the Tuition Stability Plan, the policy that sets tuition for each new class of UC undergraduates and then holds it flat for up to six years (Santa Barbara Independent, November 21, 2025). The renewed plan took effect with students entering in the 2026–27 academic year. The vote came as UC campuses were dealing with reduced state support and frozen federal research grants, and it drew opposition from students and some regents. Below is how the plan works, what changed, and what it means for future students, including out-of-state and international undergraduates.

How the renewed plan works

According to the UC Office of the President, the reauthorized plan works as follows (UC Office of the President: Tuition Stability Plan):

Formula: increases are based on a three-year rolling average of the California Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent, with overall increases capped at 5 percent a year.
Banking: any amount above the 5 percent cap can be banked and used in later years, but still within the annual 5 percent cap. Students entering in 2026–27 see increases of inflation plus 1 percent; students entering in 2027–28 and later see inflation plus 1 percent plus any banked amount.
Rate freeze for undergraduates: tuition is set for each incoming class and stays flat until graduation, for up to six years. This applies to first-year and transfer students alike (UC Admissions: Tuition Stability Plan).
Charges covered: tuition, the Student Services Fee and, for out-of-state and international undergraduates, Nonresident Supplemental Tuition (NRST). NRST is also expected to stay the same for up to six academic years after enrollment.
Graduate students: graduate tuition and the Student Services Fee are not frozen by cohort. They adjust each year by the same amount for new and continuing students.
Duration: the plan is up for reauthorization by summer 2033, with any changes applying to 2033–34.

UC notes that the plan is “not a guarantee”: the Regents can change charges at any time, though UC says that would likely happen only in extraordinary circumstances such as a sudden, significant shortfall in state support.

What changed: a smaller share for financial aid

The most debated change is the share of new tuition revenue set aside for financial aid. Under the original plan, 45% of new revenue went to aid; the renewed plan lowers that to 40% (Santa Barbara Independent). UC’s page lists the new set-asides as 40% of the increase in undergraduate tuition and Student Services Fee revenue, 20% of the increase in undergraduate NRST, 50% for graduate academic programs and 40% for graduate professional programs, with part of the remaining new revenue available for campus needs.

UC argues the plan still lowers costs for lower- and middle-income families. UC Office of the President projections reported by the Santa Barbara Independent put the average annual net cost for a student from a family earning $45,000 at $12,410 under the plan, compared with $14,000 without it; families earning $90,000 to $120,000 save about $400 on average; and families earning more than $180,000 pay more ($41,400 versus $40,700). UC also says more than half of current California resident undergraduates have all of their UC tuition and fees covered by grants and scholarships (UC Office of the President).

Opposition at the vote

Student Regent Sonya Brooks voted against the plan. Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who sits on the board, said she was troubled by the lack of annual review and the long-term effects on students who are already struggling. UC Santa Barbara students at the meeting protested the increase (Santa Barbara Independent).

The budget pressure behind the vote

UC leaders presented modest, predictable tuition increases as one of the few tools left to stabilize funding. Several sources show the pressure:

State funding: California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) reported in February 2025 that UC’s 2025–26 core funding was about $10.8 billion, 43% ($4.6 billion) from the state General Fund. The budget plan made an ongoing General Fund reduction of $272 million (5.6%), mostly offset by an expected $241 million increase in tuition and fee revenue, for a net decrease of $30 million. It also deferred a $241 million base increase and $31 million in funding for replacing nonresident students with Californians to 2027–28, while still expecting UC to cut nonresident undergraduate enrollment by 902 full-time-equivalent students a year at Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego (LAO: The 2025-26 Budget: University of California).
Campus actions: in April 2025, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla told the campus that initial scenarios showed possible reductions of $75 million to more than $500 million a year. UC San Diego paused faculty and staff hiring at the university and UC San Diego Health with limited exceptions, postponed the Multidisciplinary Life Sciences Building and the Hillcrest Multipurpose Clinical Research Building indefinitely, and paused several medium-sized projects (UC San Diego Today, April 2, 2025).
Systemwide: by the time of the vote, the Santa Barbara Independent reported, UC faced a $130 million cut in state funding, nearly 800 layoffs systemwide and hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen or lost federal research grants.

Latest update: 2026–27 charges

UC Admissions says undergraduates who started in 2026–27 pay about $654 more in tuition than the previous rate, a 4.4% increase that stays constant until graduation, for up to six years (UC Admissions). In a May 2026 report, the LAO put systemwide 2026–27 undergraduate tuition and fees for the new cohort at $15,588 for California residents and $54,848 for nonresidents, including $39,270 in NRST, both 4.4% higher than for the 2025–26 cohort. The LAO also recommended a four-year pilot, starting in 2027–28, that would raise NRST for new nonresident students by about $6,000 at Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego and about $2,000 at the other campuses. That is a recommendation to the Legislature, not adopted policy (LAO, May 12, 2026). The same report put nonresidents at 15.5% of UC undergraduates in fall 2025 (7.1% domestic and 8.4% international).

What it means for international and out-of-state applicants

Predictable cost: because NRST is covered by the plan, an international undergraduate’s tuition, Student Services Fee and NRST are set when they enroll and should stay flat for up to six years. That makes it easier to plan four years of costs and to prepare the financial documents needed for an I-20.
Less aid from NRST increases: only 20% of new NRST revenue is set aside for financial aid. Most of the aid UC describes is aimed at California residents, so international students should budget for the full nonresident cost unless a campus offers them a specific scholarship.
Watch for NRST changes: if the Legislature adopts the LAO’s NRST pilot or a similar proposal, students entering in 2027–28 or later at Berkeley, UCLA or UC San Diego could pay noticeably more. Check each campus’s cost-of-attendance page before you apply.
Applying: for UC application timelines, Personal Insight Questions and English requirements for international applicants, see our UC application guide. For campus-level data, see our school pages for UC San Diego and the other UC campuses.

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