2026 Best Value Nuclear Engineering Schools in California
[Nuclear Engineering](/majors/engineering/nuclear-engineering/) degree programs vary widely in price and payoff across the country. The schools below stand out for delivering a strong nuclear engineering education at a price that pays off.
For its 2026 best-value ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools to find the best return on investment for nuclear engineering students.
What’s on this page:
2026 Best Value Nuclear Engineering Schools in California
If you want to know which schools deliver the best value for the nuclear engineering degrees they offer, see the list below.
Best Value Nuclear Engineering Schools
University Of California Berkeley tops our 2026 list of the best value nuclear engineering schools in California. University Of California Berkeley is a very large public school located in the city of Berkeley. Expect in-state tuition and fees of around $15,377, while out-of-state students pay about $47,265. Students borrow a median of $14,238 to complete the nuclear engineering program here. Early-career nuclear engineering graduates make about $70,847. That is a strong return on a $14,238 median debt. University Of California Berkeley admits about 11% of applicants.
Notes and References
The ranking above is published by College Factual (MF_RANKING_2025), 2026 edition. Schools are scored on the balance of cost (tuition and student debt) against student outcomes (post-graduation earnings) — a measure of return on investment, drawn primarily from the U.S. Department of Education (IPEDS and College Scorecard).
Ranking method: College Major Best Value · 2 schools evaluated.
*Averages shown above reflect the top 1 ranked 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 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.
