D has a list of schools that we deemed affordable by using NPCs. I had noticed some posts here concerning student health plans and costs so I went back to find the information for those schools. Sometimes that information is found on a separate page of a school’s website and is not necessarily listed with tuition and room/board. Some schools list a ‘health center fee’ but that is not the health insurance plan premium. I resorted to searching “student health insurance plan college ____”.
Muhlenberg seems like a good match for D but does not offer any student health insurance plan. I emailed them to ask about it and they said they don’t offer one and didn’t offer any further information. That might be acceptable if you have a plan that will cover you there. We don’t. Muhlenberg is great but it is not worth spending time, energy, and money over four years trying to sort out a separate plan to cover her.
Are there any other colleges that don’t offer a student health plan?
Maybe Muhlenberg is an outlier. This information could be helpful to some of us. Thanks.
Timely topic. Our sons college requires a plan that provides primary care in their state. Ours did not qualify so we purchased their insurance for him - it is the same cost as our regional insurance and vastly better.
@Mwfan1921 I don’t know. I would ask that question on the Muhlenberg forum page.
In regards to other schools, I have read some threads where people were suggesting buying insurance for their kid through a state exchange. Can one purchase a plan through a state exchange for an OOS student? Doesn’t the student have to be a legal resident of that state? And what would happen to their dependent status?
There are also posts about some parents requesting an insurance waiver to use their family coverage for their student but being denied by the school. I think each family has to investigate this based on the school and the family insurance. It sounds very variable.
I spent a lot of time to find a solution using the state insurance exchange ( in my case State of Illinois ) and found in comparison, the college provided insurance, due to its buying power is far superior than individual plan in the exchange. I have to pay for the college plan. If the college does not provide a student health insurance then the last resort is buy the best individual plan you can afford or Change your selected company plan to have out of state coverage, if that is possible.
But the ACA exchange policies can be VERY expensive because it is very unlikely that the students would qualify for any subsidy, or for medicaid if it is a medicaid expansion state.
Research this issue before your student applies to the school! Then you should, hopefully, know if your insurance will work or not.
The student health insurance plan premium at schools on her list, mainly LACs, ranges from about $1600 to $3200 per year. Also some plans cover the whole year while others only cover the school year.
Since most college students are living where they were living before attending college and commuting to the local community college or regional state university, it should not be surprising that many of them are not buying medical insurance through their colleges.
Also-- my kids didn’t go particularly close to home (a couple hours by car) but our Blue Cross policy was acceptable to both schools as it covered nationwide and had plenty of providers in the area. So we were able to waive the school insurance.
Back when our kids were at USoCal, 2006-2013, USC had a reasonably-priced insurance BCBS plan that seemed to provide good coverage. We only purchased it in S’s senior year 2009-2010 and never made any claims on it. All the other years, we got waivers because we had better family coverage which covered our kids—in our home state or wherever they were.
I checked and found that the College of Wooster, Knox, and Rhodes are similar colleges that do not offer student health insurance plans either. I was checking for domestic students.