All colleges list the expenses that one would incur during the student’s tenure at the school. It is sort of like shopping for the car, except that the sticker price cannot be negotiated with the dealer. That being said, just as you wouldn’t buy the car without knowing the price, you shouldn’t do go to a college without doing some financial analysis. Like car shopping, you should probably figure out what features you want from a school. What features are options? After you decide all this, you can figure out what the cost of your education will be. There are the main areas of comparison: tuition and fees, books and supplies, room and board, transportation, and personal expenses.
Tuition and fees are as different as the people in the Benetton commercials. You have the low-cost tuition available at many community colleges and state universities to high tuition at private institutions. Also, many public schools are quite expensive for those who are out-of-state. So before you have your heart set on being a Spartan at Michigan State University, consider the costs of being an out-of-state attendee which may be more than if you were to attend a private school.
After tuitions, the biggest cost factor is room and board if you happen to attend a 4 year university with campus housing. Even if you commute from home, your savings will not be significant as your travel expenses will increase significantly and you will find yourself eating out at least once per day. Plus, if you were to hook up with someone at a party, you need to either stay at a motel or bring that person back home. So you probably will realize that room and board is not an option. And if you think that living off-campus can save you money, you might want to rethink that option as well. If you live in New York City, the rent you pay on campus will be significantly below market.
Books and supplies are fairly constant. You should expect to spend around $400 to $600 each semester on books. Now, if you have roommates who are taking the same classes, you can split the costs but the savings will not be significant. You can lower the cost of buying books by purchasing online or buying used. Or as many of the CampusNut staffers have done, don’t buy the books at all (okay, that’s not recommended but is an option).
Transportation should be the cost of going home and any related trips that you may do. During the course of the year, you will probably go home three to four times. Once during the Thanksgiving break for about one week. Second during the winter break and the holidays. You might go home sometime during the spring. And let’s not forget about spring break travel plans to Cancun for one week of debauchery. You might save money on airfare by getting student rates or sending yourself via FedEx (again, not recommended) or staying on campus while everyone else is away. But factor this cost. While the school gives you a pretty accurate portrayal of tuition, room and board and books fees that one would incur, they grossly underestimate the transportation cost. Either the universities are not telling us how they can make three roundtrips from Boston to California for $100 or they provide ridiculous estimates to make the cost of attending seem cheap.
When schools project your personal life, they assume that you will never find a boyfriend/girlfriend, go out to dinner, rent movies, buy music, etc. Perhaps, the administrators had no social lives when they were in college but our readers are hip and happening. Assume that you can go on $10 per day during the weekdays and spend $50 during the weekend. That is very conservative but that will run you $100 per week. Over the course of a year, that will cost you around $3,500. Now, if you happen to find eternal happiness with a high maintenance boyfriend or girlfriend, expect to double or triple this amount. Given the fact that most colleges list less than $2,000 for your personal and travel costs (this includes phone bills, electricity, etc.), you should bump the cost by another $3,000 if you have no social life to $6,000 if you have an active lifestyle.
