Welding schools in California
71 welding training programs in California, sourced from IPEDS, College Scorecard, and the AWS ATF Domestic Site Listing.
California Shipbuilding Corporation, Wilmington, CA, 1942. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI, public domain
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Welding schools in California by city
71 programs across 66 cities, listed by how many programs each city has. Tuition is the lowest figure any program in that city reports; compare states on every state ranked by tuition.
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71 welding programs, spread across a state this size
60 of California's 71 welding programs are public, run mostly out of the community college system; the rest split between 11 private schools. Median tuition among the 70 California programs reporting a figure is $1,326, below the $4,728 national median across 916 programs.
That median hides an enormous spread. Barstow Community College in Barstow runs $1,104, a community college price; Universal Technical Institute of California Inc in Rancho Cucamonga lists $56,600, a private technical institute price roughly fifty times higher for the same credential. Check the table above before assuming either end is typical.
No single city dominates
Sacramento carries the most programs in the state at 3, just ahead of San Bernardino with 2, but neither comes close to a majority. California's welding schools are scattered across the Central Valley and both coasts rather than stacked in one metro. 5 campuses host a co-located AWS Accredited Test Facility, letting a student test for AWS Certified Welder without traveling to a separate testing site.
The shop side of this site tells a different story: Fresno, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Sacramento, CA and 3 more California metros each carry their own directory of local welding shops, linked further down this page.