<p>As a prospective LAC applicant, I applied for many expensive colleges whose cost of attendance per year usually exceeds $60k. My family is rich enough to pay even $100k for my education per year, but I recklessly assumed that I would need merely about $72k each year, including $8k of my personal expenditure (I'm actually quite frugal.) Today, I received an email from one of colleges of my choice, Wesleyan University, and I learned that the cost of attendance will be $67k at my first year and $76k at my last year, and the cost will increase about by $3k per year. If my personal expenditure ($8/yr) is added, my total cost of attendance in Wesleyan for four year will be about $300k. Well, are many other LACs and expensive private universities also increasing their cost at this terrific rate ($3k/yr)? If that's true, assuming a certain college's cost of attendance was $64,000 this year, it will be $67,000 in the next year, and so on...Thus, the total cost for four years will be $286k. I hope this inflation is happening in just Wesleyan. The US has about 1.4% of inflation rate, so this level of increase in the cost is clearly outrageous. </p>
<p>Look up Wesleyan’s COA from past years, and do the math. A 5-7% annual increase is not unusual at all. Historically, increases in that range have been pretty common throughout the country.</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>COA includes “personal expenses,” so why are you adding $8k??? And, $8k for personal expenses is HIGH…not thrifty. That’s about $200 per week while in college. </p>
<p>Yes that is true. Several colleges and unis increase from 1k to 3k per year</p>
<p>Cost of attendance includes food, books, and personal expenses, as m2CK said.
And 8,000 for personal expenses (regardless of “in addition to COA” or “as part of”) is… luxurious.
Do you intend on eating out every other day and going on expensive trips? How do you expect to spend that much money?
As a college student, your personal expenses shouldn’t be over a fourth of that. Remember that in COA your food and book costs are covered, so it’d just be pocket money. Which, by the way, shouldn’t come out of your parents’ pocket since they’re already paying for the rest, but from your own work if you wish a discretionary income.</p>
<p>Now, to answer your original question: unless there is a “4 year guarantee”, yes, college costs increase at about twice the rate of inflation (3% increase to be expected each year).</p>
<p>I see. I found the nation’s historical inflation rate to be about 2.8% per year, but I underestimated it, assuming it to be the same as that of other developed countries whose average annual interest rate was lower. As you can see from the following data, the increase is about $3k/yr. The rate of increase should be about 4.2%, so it’s not an outlier, as you mentioned.<br>
2014 - 2015: $67,600
2015 - 2016: $70,304
2016 - 2017: $73,116
2017 - 2018: $76,040
<a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/international_students/cof%20instructions.html”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/international_students/cof%20instructions.html</a></p>
<p>I’m an international student living in my host family’s home and go to American private high school. Each year I have spent $8k for anything beside my tuition and home staying fee. The rough breakdown of my personal spending is as the following:
Transportation $1.5k (A plane ticket to my home country costs about $1k)
Lunch $1k
Cellphone & gym $1k
Private tutor & online classes $2k
Textbooks & prep books $0.5k
Summer program $2k</p>
<p>Does this sound luxurious? I think my definition of “personal spending” was wrong. I probably don’t need to spend for lunch, private tutor & online classes, and prep books in my college, but instead I will need to spend much for a car, which I haven’t owned yet but I will. </p>
<p>You wouldn’t need a car at Wesleyan.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice. I realized that after looking at the surrounding environment of Wesleyan. I like this sort of environment where the train system is well-developed. </p>
<p>Transportation $1.5k (A plane ticket to my home country costs about $1k) => included in COA for internationals
Lunch $1k => including in board
Cellphone & gym $1k => gym membership is typically included in COA
Private tutor & online classes $2k => no longer necessary/college will have free tutors plus writing center & math center
Textbooks & prep books $0.5k => textbooks, $1,000 a year, included in COA
Summer program $2k => do you intend to stay on campus during the summer?
You wouldn’t need a car/may not be allowed to have one on campus as a freshman anyway.
So the rest of the money you need is just for personal expenses: going out, buying stuff you want but don’t necessarily need (Itunes songs, magazine, soft drinks from the vending machine, delivery pizza…)</p>
<p>I’m glad to know that the college will have free tutors and provide gym membership for its students. </p>
<p>A typical cost increase for LACs over the last several years is about 4%. Sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower. It does indeed outstrip the general inflation rate in the US most years. But it is not specific to Wesleyan, you should assume that is the case for most of the schools you applied to. Agree that you will not need a lot of that 8K, though.</p>
<p>OK. The average income growth per capita since 2000 is about 2% in the U.S., but on the other hand, the middle class’s income isn’t growing so much. It means that upper class’s income growth is so rapid and the rate should be around 4%. It sounds reasonable to me, and I could convince myself that Wesleyan had to increase its COA not because it is struggling financially but because it is just following the general tendency of most LACs. </p>
<p><a href=“How much do Americans earn? What is the average US income and other income figures. Fiscal cliff talks only useful in context of incomes.”>http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-what-is-the-average-us-income/</a></p>
<p>Well, if you are thinking about dropping Wesleyan from your list because of this increase, you will find they are very typical of other schools. You really have to stop thinking about the overall per capita growth in income and inflation, and just accept that this is what is happening with college expenses (and has been for many, many years in the US). You wont change it by analyzing it further. Lots of people who CAN’T afford it keep saying it has to stop, but it doesn’t. There are whole threads out there about why it is going up faster than inflation that I would rather not re-hash or reinvent. Just figure out what you can afford and make a decision, knowing costs will go up every year.</p>
<p>No, I totally agree with your previous post. I agree that it is typical among many LACs and I will never reconsider the colleges of my choice because of this increase. </p>
<p>Lunch should be included in room and board estimates.
Transportation is typically included in cost of attendance (either on its own or part of “misc” expenses), but your costs may be significantly different from that listed by each college.
Textbooks are typically included in cost of attendance.
Gym is usually included or heavily subsidized by the school.
You probably need to look for better deals on cell phones and gyms anyway.</p>
<p>Wesleyan has recently committed to NOT increasing tuition above the inflation rate, precisely because it is concerned about skyrocketing tuition rates: <a href=“Tuition and Fees, Student Accounts - Wesleyan University”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaccounts/tuition.html</a></p>
<p>“Wesleyan, which will not raise tuition rates in excess of inflation, is committed to reining in growth in the cost of attending over time.”</p>
<p>And as others have said, most colleges include gym memberships and tutoring in tuition.</p>
<p>Some schools do not include int’l travel in their COAs.</p>
<p>As for “gym memberships”…it’s to use the school’s fitness center. And sometimes there is an annual fee but it should be in your COA.</p>