I’d love to hear from families who are lower income. While the f. aid package is marginally affordable, I am concerned about my son always living on the edge.
If there are families out there who would like to share their experience, please feel free to PM me.
My daughter who is currently in her third year has lots of friends who don’t seem to have two pennies to rub together. However, they are all there on free tuition for NMH winners (this does not exist anymore as it is now only $30,000 a year for NMH). Most tell her they would not have been able to attend without that merit money and try to live as cheaply as possible on campus - cheapest dorms, no meal plans, coupons for local eateries, etc. These kids have no money for vacations, or any luxuries, but they seem to fit in fine at Northeastern and are all doing very well.
Thank you, @kiddie. That would be my son. He’s not a NM winner, but his f. aid package combined both merit and need-based and covers more than tuition. I am glad to hear they are doing well. I didn’t know you could go without a meal plan. I know my oldest son at MIT has always had the cheapest meal plan.
Are there creative ways to eat cheaply at or near Northeastern, then? My son isn’t a big eater at all, but I saw mention of sushi on another thread. That’s his favorite food. (And there’s plenty of great sushi here in So Cal, though it’s not cheap)
I would want to find creative ways to get down the cost of the very expensive room and board at NU.
I need to amend that you must have a food plan as a freshman but not after that (since the freshman dorms don’t have kitchens but the upperclassman ones do). My daughter and friends go to several nearby sushi places for lunch (the lunch specials are good) and use coupons there all the time (located near symphony). The creative ways are your typical non-healthy college kid things - ramen noodles, mac and cheese in a box, etc.
I’m pretty frugal, so here’s how I keep my costs down: stick with the 10 meal plan freshman year. I eat all meals, including breakfast and had plenty of food by taking advantage of Outtakes and using my dining dollars to buy breakfast food. After freshman year, I went with cheaper standard apartment style housing and didn’t get a meal plan. (Never get the profiler meal plan - way overpriced.) I do all my grocery shopping at stop and shop, which is about a mile from campus. I don’t eat out much; instead I tend to make a lot of food to feed to my friends. (I highly recommend the website budget bytes.)
Moving off campus and not getting a meal plan dramatically cut costs. I only spend about $25-30/week on food and rent is way cheaper than university housing.
I am not sure I’m what you’d call low-income; my family makes over 100k/year but less than 130k, though they are putting both me and my sister through college right now and we live in a semi-high cost of living area. That being said, I was raised to be very frugal and as a result I probably act like I have less money than I do.
Most people I know seem to be in a similar boat of income, where they are well off, but my peers seem less concerned about money and saving money than I am. For example, almost all my friends are living in West Village which is the most expensive on-campus housing and some even have singles in WV (over $6k a semester). International students on campus tend to be super wealthy so they almost always live in the nicest places and wear exclusively name brand things/have the iPhone 74. As someone who is frugal, and rarely wears name brand things, I have noticed some wealth on campus but I definitely don’t feel out of place because of it. Just a difference, I guess.
Good ways to save on room & board: 1.) don’t live in a single, 2.) shop at Star Market/Shaw’s, not the on-campus grocery stores where everything is marked up like crazy, and budget your groceries well; 3.) apply to be an RA! I am one, and as such R&B is free for me and likely will be for the rest of my undergrad career. I will in fact likely make money next year, for having free R&B all year, only paying tuition fall semester (and super discounted because of my fin.aid), and making money on co-op in the spring.
Thanks for all the tips.
So, our income this year will be about 62K for a family of 5. Last year, it was around 72K. We’ll have two kids in college, but my MIT son pretty much handles all his costs since he works. So we’re not in the same bracket as most of the people you’re talking about.
I see that you can get a 10 meal plan for $5430 a year. Two meals a day are plenty for my son, and I am sure he can find food for the weekends.
I’m confused on the housing, though. Are these prices for the whole year?
http://www.northeastern.edu/reslife/info_pages/rates.html
Also, my son may want a single because of the way he likes to manage his diabetes more in private, but that’s not a given. Do they have substance free, quieter dorms? He wants to meet people, but doesn’t want to have to deal with a lot of partying.
He definitely would not be an RA-that would be too much to tackle. Wish it were a possibility, but I’m sure it’s not.
I do know about Shaw’s/Star Market, having been there when I visited my oldest son.
Can kids move off campus after freshman year, then?
I think the current rule is students are required to be on campus for the first two years - those housing prices are for 4 months (either spring, fall, or two summers) - and you can see that the singles are more than doubles.
Students are required to live on campus for the first 2 years, yeah, but I know several people who have gotten exemptions just by proving they genuinely cannot afford on campus housing or by having some sort of letter from a parent (for example, a kid in one my classes is a current sophomore living off campus- he had his dad write a letter saying that their family was moving to Boston area and wanted their son to live at home with them to focus on studies, even though that was all made-up, and that was approved).
Singles are abundant within IV, for Honors freshman, and harder to get otherwise.