About

The California National Debate Institute is the premier summer debate program on the West Coast, operated as a UC Berkeley-affiliated nonprofit under the same campus organizational structure that houses Berkeley's varsity debate team. It offers two main high school tracks in 2026: a three-week policy debate session and a two-week Public Forum session, both held on the UC Berkeley campus in late June and early July. Students have access to UC Berkeley's research databases and library resources — a meaningful practical advantage for policy debate preparation, where evidence quality directly determines competitive outcomes.

The program's institutional structure is worth understanding clearly: CNDI is not a university-administered pre-college program in the way Penn SAS or Yale Summer Session are, but it is a genuine UC Berkeley campus organization with deep ties to the university's debate infrastructure. Faculty are drawn from experienced high school and college coaches as well as current college debaters, including top NDT speakers — the National Debate Tournament being the premier intercollegiate policy debate championship. The curriculum covers both mainstream policy arguments and critical/philosophical debate theory, and ends with an in-camp tournament. Lab groups are deliberately small to ensure individualized instruction, and the schedule is structured to avoid burnout — explicitly a design priority according to the program.

CNDI's most distinctive market position relative to MDI is geographic and financial: it is the natural choice for California and West Coast policy debaters who would otherwise travel to Michigan, and it prices itself substantially below comparable national programs. For Bay Area students specifically, the commuter option eliminates housing costs entirely. For students considering both programs, the choice typically comes down to geography, cost, and session timing rather than quality — both draw serious competitive talent and produce nationally competitive debaters.