"It’s turned into something of a summertime ritual: decoding the college bill.
Colleges and universities across the country sent out their invoices in recent weeks for the upcoming school year. Beyond traditional tuition, room, and meal costs itemized in the statements, institutions have tacked on a dizzying array of fees over the years, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of earning a degree and often leaving students and their families confused about why the final tab is higher than they expected." …
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/08/19/college-bound-the-fees-could-end-being-big-surprise/aOzer5MwbAyhNyWlwIc3UO/story.html
$1,600 per semester plus mandatory health insurance (~$2K). Luckily, my health ins. plan covers S in the area of his school, so we got that waived.
No surprise that a Massachusetts-based newspaper would write this article, since the Massachusetts public universities are known for having very low “tuition”, but very high “fees” (which also means that a “full tuition” scholarship there only discounts the smaller “tuition” amount leaving the larger “fees”).