Boarding schools near Santa Barbara

The Santa Barbara area’s principal boarding school is Cate School, founded in 1910 and set on a mesa in nearby Carpinteria, a short drive down the coast from the city. It is a co-educational, college-preparatory school serving grades 9–12, with both boarding and day students.

As a boarding school, Cate draws students nationally and internationally and offers the residential model that the area’s other private and public schools do not. That model carries a higher cost: boarding tuition is reported in the high tens of thousands of dollars (recent figures around $75,000–$84,000 a year, with a lower day rate) — confirm the current year directly with the school.

No other school in this guide offers boarding; the remaining private schools (Laguna Blanca, Bishop García Diego, Providence, Anacapa) are day schools. If boarding is the priority, Cate is the local option to evaluate.