San Francisco City Guide
ABA Programs in San Francisco
The Bay Area has the highest top-decile pay for this occupation of any metropolitan area in the United States and not one university inside it teaches an ABA master's. Both halves of that sentence are true, and together they explain how behavior analysis actually works here. This guide covers the routes Bay Area students use, the regional centers that decide who gets funded, and what a $68,400 median means when housing costs almost double the national average.
Key Takeaways
- 01No Bay Area university offers an ABA master's. Not Cal, not San Francisco State, not Cal State East Bay. For a metro of 4.65 million people with one of the country's densest concentrations of universities, this is the most surprising fact on the page.
- 02The nearest ABAI-accredited program is Sacramento State's M.S., about ninety miles northeast and accredited through December 31, 2031. It reported an 89% first-attempt BCBA pass rate across the combined BACB 2023-2024 release, the strongest in California that year.
- 03In practice most Bay Area students study online. Alliant International University's 30-credit M.S. runs fully online with three intakes a year, and National University's 30-credit M.S. starts monthly.
- 04The 90th percentile here is $132,510 (BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 21-1018) — the highest of any metro in this guide. Sacramento is second at $127,270 and San Jose third at $123,600. The median here is $68,400.
- 05Housing runs 94.7% above the national average on the BEA price index, which is the single largest housing premium of any metro on this site apart from San Jose. The pay premium is real; so is the reason for it.
The Bay Area trains no behavior analysts. That sounds like an error, so it is worth stating plainly: no university in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo or Marin county offers a master's degree in applied behavior analysis. California has roughly eleven ABA master's programs and they sit in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Northridge, Turlock, Fresno and San Diego. None of them is here.
What Bay Area students do instead is one of three things. They commute to Sacramento, where Sacramento State holds one of California's two ABAI accreditations and posts the best pass rate in the state. They enroll online with a California institution — Alliant, National University or Fresno Pacific — and do their fieldwork locally. Or they take the coursework sequence alone if they already hold a qualifying degree.
The employment side could hardly be more different. This metro pays a 90th percentile of $132,510 for the occupation behavior analysts are counted in, the highest figure anywhere in this guide. Three regional centers fund services across the five counties, the tech-sector commercial insurance base is deep, and the school districts are well funded relative to most of the country. The gap between where the work is and where the training is means the Bay Area imports its behavior analysts, and pays accordingly.
Metro scope
Includes: San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, Berkeley, Hayward, San Mateo, Richmond, Concord. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro, covering San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin counties — the city itself, the whole East Bay from Richmond down through Fremont, and the Peninsula as far as San Mateo.
Note: No state line and no state license. California does not license behavior analysts, so there is no LBA, no board and no renewal: your BCBA is the operative credential, and Senate Bill 946 ties insurance coverage for behavioral health treatment of autism to that certification rather than to a state credential. The boundary that matters in the Bay Area is a different one. California divides developmental disability services among twenty-one regional centers, and this metro contains three catchments: the Golden Gate Regional Center for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo, the Regional Center of the East Bay for Alameda and Contra Costa, and San Andreas to the south. Vendorization is granted by a single regional center, not statewide, so an agency funded in Oakland is not automatically funded in San Francisco.
The programs
The ABA programs Bay Area students actually use
4 programs
California State University, Sacramento — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
Sacramento, about 90 miles northeast · Sacramento, CA · Capitol Corridor rail or I-80; a relocation rather than a commute for most people
- Tuition
- $467 per credit hour at CSU systemwide graduate rates
- Length
- 39 to 41 units, about 2 years
- Format
- On-campus
- Accreditation
- ABAI-accredited at master's level (Pathway 1) through December 31, 2031
- Part-time
- Cohort structure; confirm pacing with the department
- One of only two ABAI-accredited ABA master's programs in California, accredited through December 31, 2031
- Reported an 89% first-attempt BCBA pass rate across the combined BACB 2023-2024 release, the strongest figure in the state that year
- Public CSU pricing at roughly $467 per credit, a fraction of the Bay Area private rate for anything comparable
- Sacramento is where the UC Davis MIND Institute sits, which gives the program an unusually strong research and clinical neighbor
- Ninety miles from San Francisco: realistic if you can move, hard if you cannot
Alliant International University — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
Fully online; Alliant is a California institution with a San Francisco campus · San Francisco, CA · No commute; online delivery
- Tuition
- Published per-unit rates are on Alliant's tuition page; confirm the current School of Education rate
- Length
- 30 credits, a minimum of 52 weeks
- Format
- 100% online
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; Alliant California School of Education
- Part-time
- Three intakes a year, in August, January and May
- Thirty credits and a 52-week minimum make this one of the shortest routes available to a working technician
- Alliant states the program "meets the behavior-analytic coursework requirements for those pursuing the BCBA pathway 2 eligibility route"
- A California institution with a San Francisco campus, so faculty and advising are inside the state's regional center and school-district context
- Three start dates a year rather than one annual cohort
- Delivery is online even though the university has Bay Area premises — do not expect a local classroom
National University — M.S. in Applied Behavioral Analysis
Fully online · San Diego, CA · No commute; monthly cohort starts
- Tuition
- $464 per credit hour
- Length
- 30 semester credit hours across 10 courses, about 18 months
- Format
- Fully online, with on-campus delivery at selected California locations
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; National University
- Part-time
- Monthly start dates built around working students
- Monthly start dates, which suits people who decide to begin outside an academic calendar
- Thirty credits across ten courses, among the shortest in the state
- National University reported a 35% first-attempt BCBA pass rate in the BACB 2025 report (424 candidates), well below the 51% national rate; ask the program about it directly
- On-campus options exist at selected California locations, none of them in the Bay Area
- Coursework has been verified by ABAI as meeting BCBA eligibility requirements
California State University Stanislaus — M.A. in Applied Behavior Analysis
Turlock, Central Valley · Turlock, CA · About 90 miles southeast of the East Bay
- Tuition
- $467 per credit hour at CSU systemwide graduate rates
- Length
- 40 units, four semesters full-time
- Format
- On-campus
- Accreditation
- BCBA Pathway 2 coursework; CSU Stanislaus Department of Psychology
- Part-time
- Full-time four-semester sequence
- The smallest CSU credit count in California at 40 units
- Reported an 86% first-attempt BCBA pass rate in the BACB 2023 release
- CSU systemwide pricing, the same as Sacramento State and Cal State LA
- Turlock is a Central Valley town rather than a Bay Area suburb, so this is a relocation option
- The program page does not publish a whole-program total; use CSU systemwide resident graduate tuition for the current rate
Cost of living
What it costs to live in the Bay Area while you study
There is no gentle way to put the Bay Area housing number: the BEA price index puts housing here 94.7% above the national average, second only to San Jose. Everything else about the metro is comparatively normal — the whole basket runs 15.6% above national, which is high but not extraordinary. If you are weighing this metro against another, the decision is almost entirely about rent. In exchange you get the one thing most American metros do not have: a genuine option to work without a car, at least on the BART and Muni corridors.
Housing, 2024
194.7
94.7% above the national average
Everything, 2024
115.6
15.6% above the national average
Metro median pay covers
$59,170
of national-average spending
Housing runs 94.7% above the national average, which is the single biggest reason the overall cost of living lands where it does.
Both figures are BEA Regional Price Parities for San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, 2024, where the national average is 100. Housing is the services-housing component; the second figure is the whole basket.
Transit
BART, Muni, AC Transit and Caltrain
Dense by American standards; a San Francisco or inner East Bay caseload can work without a car
Car
Caseload-dependent
Suburban Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo in-home work needs one; a city clinic caseload may not
Housing price level
94.7% above the national average
BEA Regional Price Parity for housing, 2024; the second-highest in this guide
Regional center catchments in the metro
Three
Golden Gate, East Bay and San Andreas — vendorization is granted by one, not statewide
Tuition, Sacramento State and CSU Stanislaus
$467 per credit hour
CSU systemwide graduate rate; both are outside the metro
Clinical fieldwork
BCBA certification in San Francisco: where Bay Area students do supervised fieldwork
Fieldwork is abundant here and the constraint is geography rather than supply. Three regional centers fund services across the five counties, and their vendorized providers are where most supervised hours are logged. Above that sits a strong hospital tier led by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, and a set of school districts that vary widely in how they staff behavior support. The metro has no federally designated UCEDD of its own — California's sit at UCLA, USC and UC Davis — so the academic training tier is thinner than the clinical one.
Golden Gate Regional Center
Golden Gate Regional Center coordinates developmental disability services for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. Its vendorized providers carry most of the funded caseload on the western side of the bay.
Regional Center of the East Bay
Regional Center of the East Bay covers Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the larger of the two catchments by population, serving Oakland, Berkeley, Fremont, Hayward and the Contra Costa suburbs.
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland run the metro's developmental and behavioral pediatrics services, and are the most competitive placements in the region.
Bay Area school districts
San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified and the larger suburban districts host school-based placements. District practice varies considerably across the five counties, so ask about behavior-support staffing specifically.
Vendorized ABA agencies
Providers funded through the regional centers and through commercial plans under SB 946 run in-home and center-based services across the metro. Ask which regional center has vendorized a site: the answer determines which counties it can bill for.
Hiring market
Major ABA employers across the Bay Area
The Bay Area employer market is shaped by two forces that do not exist together anywhere else. One is the regional center system, which funds a large share of services and sets rates administratively. The other is a commercial insurance base fed by the highest-paying private sector in the country, which pays well above those rates. Agencies that can bill both ends of that market are the ones that can pay Bay Area salaries, and the pay distribution shows exactly where that lands.
Golden Gate Regional Center
Regional center for developmental disabilities
Funds and coordinates services for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. Rarely the direct employer of behavior analysts, but the body whose vendorization decisions shape the provider market on the west side of the bay.
Regional Center of the East Bay
Regional center for developmental disabilities
Serves Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the metro's largest catchment by population, from offices in San Leandro and Concord.
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals
Pediatric academic medical centers
San Francisco and Oakland campuses running developmental and behavioral pediatrics for the region, and the metro's hospital-tier employer for this work.
San Francisco Unified School District
Public school district
The city's district, employing behavior specialists across special education services, with a school calendar and CalSTRS or CalPERS membership in place of the agency pay ceiling.
Oakland Unified School District
Public school district
The East Bay's largest district, serving a more diverse and higher-need student population than most of the metro, and a substantial employer of behavior support staff.
Side by side
Comparing the 4 San Francisco programs
The same programs as above, set against each other on the things that decide which one you apply to: how it is delivered, how long it runs, what it costs, and whether it asks for the GRE.
| Program | Format | Length | Tuition | GRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California State University, Sacramento — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis Sacramento, CA | On-campus | 39 to 41 units, about 2 years | $467 per credit hour at CSU systemwide graduate rates | Not required |
| Alliant International University — M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis San Francisco, CA | 100% online | 30 credits, a minimum of 52 weeks | Published per-unit rates are on Alliant's tuition page; confirm the current School of Education rate | Not required |
| National University — M.S. in Applied Behavioral Analysis San Diego, CA | Fully online, with on-campus delivery at selected California locations | 30 semester credit hours across 10 courses, about 18 months | $464 per credit hour | Not required |
| California State University Stanislaus — M.A. in Applied Behavior Analysis Turlock, CA | On-campus | 40 units, four semesters full-time | $467 per credit hour at CSU systemwide graduate rates | Not required |
Metro pay
BCBA salary in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro
Metro median
$68,400
National median
$59,350
10th percentile
$48,050
90th percentile
$132,510
BLS metro median, May 2025
$68,400
$9,050 above the national median
Cost of living, 2024
115.6
15.6% above the national average
Worth nationally
$59,170
the same pay in national-average dollars
Because prices run 15.6% above the national average, $68,400 here goes about as far as $59,170 would nationally.
BLS does not publish a separate occupation for behavior analysts. This is the May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018 (Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors), the category BCBAs are counted in, which also contains counseling roles that typically pay less. Read it as a floor for the metro, not as BCBA pay. Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Cost of living is the BEA Regional Price Parity for the metro, all items, 2024, where the national average is 100. It is the most recent year BEA publishes, so it sits one year behind the wage figure. Prices: BEA Regional Price Parities.
The published figure for this metro is $68,400, the BLS OEWS May 2025 median for SOC 21-1018, Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors, across the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro. That is $9,050 above the national median of $59,350 for the same code. BLS publishes no separate occupation for behavior analysts, and SOC 21-1018 also contains counseling roles that require neither a master's nor board certification, so read $68,400 as a floor for the metro rather than as BCBA pay.
The figure that distinguishes this metro is the top of the distribution. The 90th percentile is $132,510, the highest of any metro covered on this site, ahead of Sacramento at $127,270 and San Jose at $123,600. The 10th percentile is $48,050. A $84,000 spread inside one occupational category is the signature of a market where credentials are scarce relative to demand, which is precisely what a metro with no local training pipeline and three regional centers should look like.
Then the arithmetic. Prices across the metro run 15.6% above the national average, so $68,400 here goes about as far as $59,170 would nationally — which is to say the median, cost-adjusted, is roughly the national median. Housing alone runs 94.7% above national. The conclusion is uncomfortable but clear: at the median, the Bay Area premium is entirely consumed by cost. At the 90th percentile it is not, and that is the case for coming here. For national context see our BCBA salary guide.
Other cities
Other cities in California
We also cover 6 other metros in California. If you can commute, comparing them is worth ten minutes — the program list changes, but so does the fieldwork market, and that is the half your location actually constrains.
Nearby metros
If you are flexible on metro
Every alternative worth weighing is inside California, because the state's rules — no license, SB 946 coverage, regional centers instead of a board — are the part that takes longest to learn. Sacramento is the obvious one: it has an accredited program, the UC Davis MIND Institute, and housing at a fraction of the Bay Area level.
ABA Programs in Sacramento
Ninety miles northeast, with an ABAI-accredited master's and the UC Davis MIND Institute, at a third of the housing cost.
ABA Programs in San Jose
The other half of the Bay Area, with even higher housing costs and the same absence of a local program.
ABA Programs in California
The full state picture: every California program, why the state licenses nobody, and how SB 946 works.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
01How many ABA programs are in San Francisco?+
02Do I need a license to practice ABA in San Francisco?+
03How much do BCBAs make in San Francisco?+
04Where do Bay Area ABA students do supervised fieldwork?+
05Why does the Bay Area have no ABA master's program?+
06Is San Francisco a good place to start a BCBA career?+
Sources
- Sacramento State, M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis (university catalog)
- Alliant International University, M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis
- National University, M.S. in Applied Behavioral Analysis
- California State University Stanislaus, M.A. in Applied Behavior Analysis
- BACB, U.S. Licensure of Behavior Analysts by State
- BLS OEWS May 2025, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA (SOC 21-1018)
- Golden Gate Regional Center
- ABAI Accredited Programs Directory