Do employers looks at job applicants from UCs differently than applicants who have graduated from Cal States?  If so, how?

This depends on major your son takes, and what degree he finishes with, and the window of value won't last long (post-graduation). A short answer is Yes. As was pointed out to me by my CA high school counslers (sp, I'll get back to it): the UC is a research institution which is supposed to take the top 10% (90 percentile) HS graduates from California. The CSU system is supposed to take the top 1/3 of CA high school graduates. The CSU was once termed a "teacher's college" system. Two of the CSU systems are Cal Polys (SLO and Pomona) which have special added emphasis. Neither is bad if your son is planning to be a teacher, but the UC has a number of edges including perceptions of selectivity. The UC of old was the institution which produced the atomic bomb for the country in WWII. It had a lot of money pumped into it, and it once had even more grandiose plans. I've recently had a number of CS discussions about getting CSU faculty invited to meetings and reviews with people in Washington DC. Old perceptions are bad, but they are unfortunate hurtles which have to be dealt. A friend is a CSU campus Dean (who went to UCSB). SDSU is a fine school, but it's really more important what you son ends up learning (to learn) from his experience in college. If he thinks he can hack a UC school, he should try. SDSU has noted CS faculty (I know both students who went there as well as faculty), but you can never tell what an employer thinks fully in the hiring process. He can transfer, employers will look at the final degree more than the first starting years at college. He has to survive his first year in college first (and I know bright people who did not).