<p>I am going to be a high school senior this year. To make a long story short, my parents do not want me to dorm. In an effort to keep me from doing so, my mom came up with the suggestion that if I want to dorm, I will have to pay for it all myself, the housing price and the things I buy to have in the dorm room. Is this common or strange? How many of you parents actually pay for your kids' dorming fees? And around how much would I have to save up to be able to dorm for one year?</p>
<p>Every set of parents and children set up a different way to handle finances at school. My parents pay for me to board (I go to school 12 hours from home...) but I pay for all my own room supplies, spending money and anything other than basic college fees.</p>
<p>As for price, it depends on the school and whether you get a double, single, triple, campus apartment, etc. I know at my school a standard double is $2,000-3,000 a year. It is less if you get a triple, more if you have a single, apartment or a fancier dorm with better location/ammenities, etc.</p>
<p>Well...we are the opposite of your parents. We WANTED our kids to live at their colleges. DS goes to school to far away anyway (plus he'll be in London for study abroad....too far to commute). DD is going to apply to schools that are VERY far away. I think you need to get to the root of WHY your parents feel this way. Is it because of the cost (room and board around here is about $10,000 per year), or is it because they just want you to live at home (for other reasons...and what are they???)? Are you only applying to colleges which are within a commute of your home?</p>
<p>So are they saying that because they want you to go to a specific college? I think what's beneath this is the fact that they want you to stay at home, so perhaps you need a talk about that...are they just afraid to let you go? Fear that you'll never come back? Don't want their child to grow up?</p>
<p>I assume in order to live at home you will need a car. Compute how much it will cost to operate. This could include car payments, insurance, maintence, and gas. I bet you will come up with a number that is far larger than the cost of boarding.</p>
<p>I've copied this information from the Harvard website. Harvard is one of the most expensive private schools in the country.<br>
Tuition $28,752
Health Services Fee $1,370
Student Services Fee $1,975
Room $5,148
Board $4,430
Subtotal
$41,675
Estimated Personal Expenses $2,675
Total Budget $44,350</p>
<p>You will see that, based on these figures, your parents would be expecting you to pay
Student Services Fee $1,975
Room $5,148
Board $4,430
Estimated Personal Expenses $2,675</p>
<p>or a total of about $14k a year, around $60k for 4 years. Admittedly, this total is rather high, but not totally out of line. Below is information from UC Berkeley:</p>
<p>Living on Campus Living off Campus Living at Home
Registration & Fees** $ 7,434 $ 7,434 $ 7,434
Housing, food & utilities 12,554 9,064 3,756
Books and supplies 1,266 1,266 1,266
Personal expenses 1,326 1,534 1,524
Transportation 652 1,108 1,786
Total $23,232 $20,406 $15,766</p>
<p>*Estimated budget; subject to change.</p>
<p>The cost of living on campus and covering books and personal expenses at Berkeley is thus close to $16k.</p>
<p>There is no way you can earn enough through term-time and summer work.<br>
Does this mean that your parents do not wish you to attend college farther away? how much of a commute would you have if you lived at home? what kind of college is close to you?</p>
<p>at the very least, if you decide to live on campus your parents should give you the amount they're saving on your food, laundry, transportation to campus, etc.! </p>
<p>I understand that cost is an issue for many families in deciding where the student should live, and so it might be understandable that they want you to save money by living with them. if you are one of the few students at a given college who lives off-campus, it WILL impact the social interactions you have with your classmates (maybe this is your parents' reason for wanting you at home?) only you can decide whether your independence is more important than your debt balance.</p>
<p>My parents have always been very overprotective. The only college they will allow me to go to is Rutgers, which is pretty close to home. My sister goes there and has been commuting every year; she has never dormed. But she doesn't mind...she isn't the type that wants to dorm anyway. And so my parents feel that if this is what she does, I should do it too. Money might also be an issue...we aren't tight on it or anything, it's just that they probably feel since the school is so close to home, it's a waste of money to pay for dorming...but I really want to get out of the house and learn how to live my own life, have my own experiences. I've been trying to convince them for a very long time already (reasonably, with no yelling, I swear :P) but they refuse to budge...unless on the condition that I pay for everything myself.
unsoccer-mom, I already have my own car, and as I said: my sister commutes and my parents have never seen a problem with that, so they expect me too as well.
So meanwhile I've been preparing...finding a job and everything. But I didn't know it would be that expensive...I know every college is different, but I thought it would only be about $6k or so per year. :(</p>
<p>Stargirl:</p>
<p>You are not so way off. Below is information from the Rutgers website. You'll see that the additional cost is $8914, but you should subtract the amount of money your parents save from your not living at home and the savings from your not driving everyday. You could then persuade your parents to come down to a figure that would be more manageable for you.</p>
<pre><code>Commuter On-Campus
</code></pre>
<p>Tuition $7,336<em>/</em>* $7,336<em>/</em>*</p>
<p>Fees $1,885 $2,221</p>
<p>Room and Board 0 $8,578 </p>
<p>Total $9,221 $18,135</p>
<p>According to the Rutgers website, their room and board is $8578 with the fee structure for NJ residents as follows: (from their website)- I hope this lines up correctly---</p>
<p>New Jersey Resident
Commuter On-Campus
Tuition $7,336<em>/</em>* $7,336<em>/</em>* </p>
<p>Fees $1,885 $2,221 </p>
<p>Room & Board 0 $8,578 </p>
<p>Total $9,221 $18,135 </p>
<p>*Students at Cook, Pharmacy, and Engineering should add $811 for tuition. For School of Business-Camden and Rutgers Business School-Newark, in-state students add $150 for tuition. </p>
<p>**Part-time tuition (University College): $237/credit hour for New Jersey residents.</p>
<p>Typical room, board (210 meal plan), and fees for New Brunswick residential students. These figures will vary according to campus, college, and personal choices. </p>
<p>So as I see it, you'd have to come up with about $9k for these basics (not including books, supplies, auto/gas, etc)</p>
<p>If you get school scholarship $$, will you be allowed to apply it to your costs? If you apply for outside scholarship $ and win some, will it be yours to spend? What about a campus job? It would be important to have some idea of this before you set yourself up for struggles and disappointment. Unfortunately, it should to me like your folks are being quite inflexible. Are you applying to more than one school? What if, by some chance, you aren't accepted? Will you have another option? </p>
<p>Did you folks go to college? Did they live on campus or did they commute? This may be influencing their opinion, in part. I feel terrible for you and the position you are in, as it sounds like they are being extremely rigid and unerasonable. Where my s. goes to school, many kids are from the metropolitan area (Houston) but he personally knows no one who commutes. Likewise, if he'd stayed here to go to school, we'd have encouraged him to live on campus. He could come home to do his laundry :) To me, a big part of the college experience is dorm life and the campus life. But, if a large # of students are commuters, you might not feel out of place. Would they consider allowing you to board your soph year, or will they insist that you live at home every year? Any family friends or relatives who can talk to your parents for you? Gosh, I am running out of ideas. Good luck!</p>
<p>You can trap more flies with honey. What that means is, try to sweet talk them into it rather than argue. I suspect more is at play besides being overprotective. College is expensive.Maybe the just don't have it. Maybe you can bargain a compromise with them, like, if I pay 1/2 could they pay the other? But go about ALL negociations sweetly and calmly. This will make them WANT to do it for you.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information and suggestions, everyone. I honestly appreciate it. Now, another question, are people allowed to dorm for only, say, one semester or something? The cost of dorming is too expensive for me, obviously, so I always knew that if anything, I would only be dorming for one year-preferrably my freshmen year. But just to get the college experience...I was wondering if it's worth it just to dorm for like the fall to winter semester or something. Is that possible/common?</p>
<p>It's not common, but certainly possible- people do it all the time if they go abroad for one semester.</p>
<p>Stargirl:</p>
<p>A lot of students live on campus for the first year or two, the move off-ampus, though usually into their own apartments. At some colleges, in fact, freshmen are required to live on campus. </p>
<p>I suggest that you try to negotiate with your parents that you live in a dorm for the first year. Then, maybe you will see whether you want to continue doing so; perhaps your parents will be more amenable then. Or perhaps you will feel that there are some advantages to living at home.</p>
<p>My S will be attending a college that is literally 20 minutes walk away from home. But he will live on campus, probably all 4 years, but definitely the first year (he is required to do so). Good luck to you!</p>
<p>It depends on the school, but for many it is typical for students to live on campus for only one year.
One note, regarding marite's numbers for UCB, there are several ways to bring down that $12,554 for room and board. It depends on whether you are in newer or older dorm, and also the number of people in a room.
also, in Berkeley there are the co-ops, which are about 60% of the cost of the dorms for room and board.
I live about 15 minutes away from UCB, which my son attends. Last year, he was in a dorm and this year he will be living at a co-op</p>
<p>To me, living on campus is part of what it means to go to college...the social part of the experience, along with the outside activities involved in campus life, plus the independence, a stepping stone to adulthood (or as Jamimom used to say, a "Disney halfway house"!). I won't get into your parents and what's behind it and all that right now. But I think Marite and others gave you excellent advice. </p>
<p>How to pay for it....
Get a summer job next summer (one of my kids earned $4000 the summer prior to college and my other one worked two weeks this summer prior to her freshman year, at something she created and earned $3000 in that period of time). </p>
<p>Second, rationalize this money plan with your parents, deducting off the room/board fees the cost of food, gas, or other expenses they would normally be paying for if you lived at home and commuted. </p>
<p>Third, are you on financial aid? Can you get work/study? That would bring in some more. If you don't qualify for work/study/aid, get a part time job whie going to school. I know kids who do this.</p>
<p>Fourth, go all out and search for scholarship money...often locally there are ones to apply for. One of my kids got $1500 from local scholarships at her graduation. </p>
<p>Lastly, once you deduct the monies above, that brings it down and perhaps you can take a student loan for the remainder. It is worth it. </p>
<p>I live in Vermont and know many kids who go to University of Vermont which is just under one hour from home and they all live AT school, either in dorms or eventually apartments. </p>
<p>Good luck. Where there is a will, there usually is a way.</p>
<p>Susan</p>