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Best Value Legal Research Schools in California

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2023 Best Value Legal Research Schools in California

Highlighting Quality Schools With More Affordable Pricing

15 Colleges
$38,140 Avg Tuition & Fees*
$75,122 Avg Salary

In 2020-2021, 1,054 degrees and certificates were awarded to legal research students who went to a California college or university. This makes it the #26 most popular major in the state.

Today's students have lots of options to pick from when considering higher education opportunities. You can choose a traditional brick and mortar school, or with the growth of online education, you can attend a school half-way across the country without even leaving your house. Also there are many trade schools that offer short-term programs that open up more career options.

To help you arm yourself with the information you need to make your decision, Grad Degree Search has developed this Best Value Legal Research Schools in California ranking. This report analyzed 15 schools in California to see which ones offered the best value programs for legal research students. The goal was to highlight schools with more affordable prices than others offering similar quality experiences.

When determining this ranking, we place a high emphasis on the school's quality as well as its sticker price. Even though a college may be affordable, it may not offer value. Specifically, our score for quality is discounted by the published tuition and fees charged by the given college. This gives the cost per unit of quality for each college. The more quality your dollar buys, the better the value.

Our calculations use out-of-state tuition and fees in our nationwide and regional rankings. For statewide rankings, we use average in-state tuition and fees.

The following schools top our list of the Best Value Legal Research Colleges.

Our 2023 rankings named Thomas Jefferson School of Law the best value school in California for legal research students. Located in the large city of San Diego, Thomas Jefferson School of Law is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.

Full Legal Research at Thomas Jefferson School of Law Report

$14,226 Average Tuition & Fees

The excellent programs at University of California - Berkeley helped the school earn the #2 place on this year’s ranking of the best legal research schools in California. UC Berkeley is a very large public school located in the city of Berkeley.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at UC Berkeley are $14,226 per year.

In addition to its best value ranking, and one of the reasons why the school is on the list, UC Berkeley is ranked #3 for overall quality for legal research in California.

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$13,258 Average Tuition & Fees

The excellent programs at University of California - Los Angeles helped the school earn the #3 place on this year’s ranking of the best legal research schools in California. UCLA is a fairly large public school located in the large city of Los Angeles.

UCLA undergraduate students pay an average of $13,258 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

UCLA excels when it comes to quality. It’s ranked in the top 10% of all schools on our Best Legal Research Schools in California list.

Read full report on Legal Research at University of California - Los Angeles

$13,775 Average Tuition & Fees

The excellent programs at University of California - Irvine helped the school earn the #4 place on this year’s ranking of the best legal research schools in California. UC Irvine is a fairly large public school located in the city of Irvine.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state undergraduate at UC Irvine are $13,775 a year.

Full Legal Research at University of California - Irvine Report

$14,645 Average Tuition & Fees

Out of the 15 schools in California that were part of this year’s ranking, University of California - Davis landed the # 5 spot on the list. UC Davis is a very large public school located in the suburb of Davis.

UC Davis undergraduate students pay an average of $14,645 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Read full report on Legal Research at University of California - Davis

#6

Loyola Marymount University

Los Angeles, CA
$53,051 Average Tuition & Fees

With a ranking of #6, Loyola Marymount University did quite well on this year’s best value schools for legal research students. Located in the city of Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount is a private not-for-profit school with a fairly large student population.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at Loyola Marymount are $53,051 per year.

Read full report on Legal Research at Loyola Marymount University

$11,343 Average Tuition & Fees

Golden Gate University - San Francisco did quite well in this year’s ranking of the best value schools for legal research students. It came in at #7 on the list. Golden Gate University - San Francisco is a small private not-for-profit school located in the city of San Francisco.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at Golden Gate University - San Francisco are $11,343 per year.

Read full report on Legal Research at Golden Gate University - San Francisco

#8

University of San Diego

San Diego, CA
$52,864 Average Tuition & Fees

University of San Diego ranked #8 on this year’s Best Value Legal Research Schools in California list. USD is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit school located in the large city of San Diego.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at USD are $52,864 per year.

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#9

Santa Clara University

Santa Clara, CA
$55,860 Average Tuition & Fees

With a ranking of #9, Santa Clara University did quite well on this year’s best value schools for legal research students. Located in the city of Santa Clara, SCU is a private not-for-profit college with a medium-sized student population.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at SCU are $55,860 per year.

SCU did well in our overall quality rankings, too. It placed #5 on our Best Legal Research Schools in California list.

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#10

Stanford University

Stanford, CA
$56,169 Average Tuition & Fees

Stanford University did quite well in this year’s ranking of the best value schools for legal research students. It came in at #10 on the list. Located in the large suburb of Stanford, Stanford is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.

Stanford undergraduate students pay an average of $56,169 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

Stanford also took the #1 spot in our Best Legal Research Schools in California rankings.

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Explore all the Best Value Legal Research Schools in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State Degrees Awarded
Washington 108
Oregon 26
Nevada 8
Hawaii 7

Legal Research is one of 4 different types of programs to choose from.

Related Major Annual Graduates
Law 36,216
Legal Professions (Other) 1,424
Legal Support Services 446
Non-Professional General Legal Studies 444

Notes and References

*These averages are for the top 15 schools only.

  • The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
  • Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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