<p>I was so lucky when I was in college. I had a part-time job that gave me the little spending money I needed as my parents didn’t give much for extra, but they paid for tuition, books, room and some food money so they were plenty generous. I lucked out because I started dating my husband in my freshman year and even though he didn’t come from money he always worked (still somewhat of a workaholic to this day). Anyway, he always had money for me. I look back at how selfish and financially ignorant I was, but he put up with it and treated me like a queen. He still is as generous as he was back then, although I budget the money now and I am the one making sure savings always gets paid first.</p>
<p>I plan on getting a work study and/or part time job so I can have money for books/spending/travel/go towards room and board…</p>
<p>DadII, if my son was working as much (or even half as much) as your daughter, and he needed a little spending money, I’d send it to him. On the other hand, if he chooses to work only 4 hours a week because he just doesn’t feel like working merely another 3 or 4… then that’s his choice. He can take on a little more work on campus if he needs more money. At his school there are workstudy jobs that go unfilled, the option to work a little more is there. He decides what his priorities are.</p>
<p>My daughter, on the other hand, also spends next-to-nothing on personal expenses. She works 10 hours a week and has just been saving up the money.</p>
<p>We pay for textbooks/school supplies, transportation home and cell phone and send D $225/month. This covers entertainment (including eating out which seems to happen with some frequency despite a full meal plan), transportation to places other than home, clothes, make up/ beauty supplies, etc. D tends to be frugal but her situation sounds like pulpfiction’s in which she’s at an urban campus and there’s a fair amount of social activity off campus (clubbing, eating , etc.). Even though we pay for books, she does look around for the best deals. So far this set-up seems to be working well. She’d like to get a part time job but just joined a sorority which seems to be occupying a huge amount of her time right now. Assuming this abates at some point, I know she’d like to earn some money on her own.</p>
<p>College kids have a lot more free time than parents realize (hence the partying that goes on at many schools). </p>
<p>I haven’t yet met a kid who can’t work at least 8 hours per week at a part-time job. Most full time students are only in class about 15-18 hours per week. </p>
<p>If any parent thinks that their child gets out of class everyday and religiously studies or does homework til bedtime and then continues such hard work from Friday afternoon thru Sunday night…that parent is very naive. </p>
<p>My kids spend 2 afternoons a week (4 hours a day) at their jobs. They are done by 5pm. They have every evening and all weekends free. If their grades suffered, they could NOT blame their jobs. LOL</p>
<p>Both of my kids earned their own spending money although I buy books, school supplies, and personal items in the fall. They can replenish supplies when they are home for breaks as needed. Otherwise they are on their own. My son tends to spend about $50 a month on average. My daughter epent more.</p>
<p>In terms of what expenses college students have, it varies widely by area, but typically I found I needed a big burst of money at the start of the semester to buy toiletries, whatever things I needed for my dorm (white board/pens/a few posters/a new foam egg crate pad for the mattress/new sheets or towels if necessary). The biggest of these was obviously the start of my first semester because I was going to college far away and had to equip myself from scratch (right down to notebooks, pens, and shampoo) when I arrived. I found that Target was my friend in this, because it was close to campus and I could get what i wanted in large quantities. </p>
<p>Once the “big shop” was out of the way, I could get by on pretty meager earnings from a campus job and the occasional parental supplement. Mostly I spent money on movie tickets, eating out (ice cream and coffee for studying in cafes more than dinners, but some dinners too) and buying “liquid supplies” (if you will) for the weekends. Some occasional indulgence shopping like funky cheap sunglasses or strange hats or something. Oh, and laundry. Laundry was my single greatest fixed expense. </p>
<p>The great thing about living on campus is that your kid will never be really destitute. Most of their expenses will be indulgent, and $100 can last them much longer at college than it will in the real world.</p>
<p>I pay for:
- most clothes & shoes while she is home (on campus purchases are pretty much her own)
- plane tickets & shuttles to/from campus
- cell phone monthly charge, but not texting
- dorm room basics (bedding, a lamp, an area rug)</p>
<p>She pays for:
- textbooks
- weekend trips
- any food not covered by her meal plan
- the extra fee for texting on her phone
- toiletries once she runs out of what she brings back from home
- any around town expenses (movies, eating out, cover charges, etc.)
- Dorm room extras (furniture, extra lamps, fridge)</p>
<p>So I don’t provide any spending cash for her.</p>
<p>I have to say, it has been very good for D1 to have to earn her own spending and textbook money. It forced her to get a “real job” after her senior year of high school (she ended up with a great paid internship that she will end up continuing for 3 summers), and she also landed an excellent job at the campus writing center for her sophomore year of college. And she is getting some real work experience that will make her a much more valuable hire when she graduates. We set this expectation early with our kids (D2, in 9th grade, knows that she will be on the hook for the same expenses when she goes off to college), and there have been no complaints. D1 knows that I hustle to pay her tuition and room/board fees, and that this is a very reasonable request for her to cover these expenses.</p>
<p>hahaha</p>
<p>My parents split the cost of college with me 50/50, including tuition, books, and room & board. They split the estimated cost provided by the college, not my actual expenses.</p>
<p>No money was providing for spending, and no allotment was made for a car. Those expenses, plus my 50% of college cost, was paid for by summer jobs and working during the school year. (Needless to say, I did with the car.)</p>
<p>They were willing to drive to college in the fall to drop me off and pick me up in the spring. Christmas and Thanksgiving I tried to arrange rides with friends.</p>
<p>One thing I think is sometimes overlooked when discussing whether or not kids should work in college, is that some kids really like to work, they don’t just do it because they’re parents say they have to. By the time I was in college, I had already got a taste for earning and controlling my own money and I liked that. I felt like my parents were already shelling out a huge amount on my education, and it was up to me to earn the things that I wanted for myself. They helped, sometimes, I was after all still learning to manage money and I had my first credit card so that took a little work, and sometimes I would be between jobs, but for the most part I loved feeling like I had some self-sufficiency. I didn’t feel like i had to be accountable to my parents for what I did or bought because it was with my own money. </p>
<p>Also, campus jobs get you out into your community, mixing with kids you might otherwise not meet, and some of them can be quite interesting. I had fun working, and it earned me important funds.</p>
<p>^I felt the same way. My parents would have been happy to give me an allowance, but I really liked the feeling of being independent. It was also nice to have something regular to do that wasn’t school work. Interestingly, as soon as I started working (10 hours a week) my grades went up!</p>
<p>I had a job writing software or working as a research assistant for the full four years of college. Not clear it got me out into the community but it did get me a bit of a computer tan. Actually, the jobs helped lead me to my undergraduate adviser, who didn’t take undergraduate advisees typically because he was not the world’s best communicator to mere mortals. </p>
<p>Although like my son I was on a relatively isolated campus and rarely spent money. I thought having a job was a great thing. However, a job might not be good for all kids. My son, for example, is a bit stretched by the work effort of his courses – the reading and writing tire out a highly dyslexic kid who sets extremely high standards for himself and so far realizes them. A job that added to the reading/writing load would not be great. A job as an attendant at the art museum, or something like that, might work. But, I want to make sure that he is out getting exercise as well as living the life of the mind and am nudging him in that direction rather than toward getting a job. Not everyone will have that latitude as he doesn’t need a job to cover expenses (even the minimal expenses that he has).</p>
<p>My parents split the cost of college with me 50/50, including tuition, books, and room & board. They split the estimated cost provided by the college, not my actual expenses.</p>
<p>What year was this? That would be harder to pay for today.</p>