I’m in NJ. DD20 was admitted to aNJ Public
@NJWrestlingmom - We received FA for Ramapo today. Tuition is $15086, Room/Board is $14478. DD20 received a full tuition Merit Scholarship. According to their calculations we will be out of pocket $19, 228 per year which includes books, travel & other education related expenses like a laptop, school supplies, personal expenses.
WOW! I’m continually surprised at the difference between in-state costs for different states. I would hope that after receiving a full-tuition merit scholarship that the student would not be left with $19K/yr expenses.
In NC, after merit and need, we’re looking at approximately $2K-$6K/yr depending on the school.
@EconPop - The $19K is for room/board, books, travel and other extra’s. The scholarship only covers tuition & Fees. We would probably not have as much out of pocket if she was staying at home and commuting. Even though we are in state, her commute would be a few hours per day which I believe would not be a good idea. My oldest daughter resides about 30 minutes from the school so if she attends Ramapo, we may consider this as an option after freshman year.
You need to look at housing and dining options. It’s very possible there is a less costly dorm room option, and a less costly meal option. This could reduce your billable costs to less than $14478.
The other costs costs are not ones the college will be billing you…and you do have some control over those costs.
Your student can take a $5500 Direct Loan for freshman year which would reduce parent OOP to under $10,000 for the year (billable costs), and that’s if you can’t find or they don’t have less costly room and board options.
For personal expenses, we asked our kids to get jobs. They paid for all discretionary spending…and in our case their books as well. Both also had jobs in the summers before college and that money was used for personal expenses as well.
A childhood friend went to an in-state private where he lived on campus. After graduation, he moved back home with his parents and commuted 30 minutes for grad school at one of the two flagships. But it was grad school and he didn’t have to go to class every day.
@thumper1 - Thank you. I plan to ask more questions about the break down of the “tuition & Fee’s” as well as the “housing & boarding fees” as the line items are not broken down. This college is also know for their really nice dorms so I’m sure that is why the housing costs are so high. The honor’s and scholarship students are housed in special housing with a honors lounge etc., which is probably another up charge. DD has saved half of her summer wages from last summer in anticipation of extra college expenses and will work this summer as well. She is very thrifty with her own money 
. Honestly, the OOP is within the budget we set.
@Sarrip I agree with @thumper1
If your D has a tuition and fees scholarship, then your only cost to the college would be room and board
So if that is $14,000 (unless there are less expensive room and meal plan options), then she can get her $5,500 student loan and you would be left to pay the remaining $9,000 or so.
Then she can get a summer job to help with books and personal spending, and maybe a campus job.
You don’t indicate whether you qualify for Pell or NJ TAG, that would cover probably another $10,000 of costs for a $0 FAFSA EFC student
For the OP they need to look at direct costs (tuition, fees, room, board) and aid (Pell, TAG, merit, student loan) to see if the remaining cost is affordable with parent contribution and student job.
My D had a tuition scholarship and a state grant, plus about $2,000 in local scholarships freshman year.
We paid for fees and remaining room/board costs.
In sophomore and later years she took subsidized loans and lived off campus in a shared apartment and cooked her meals instead of a meal plan, we helped with rent and groceries.
Books were several hundred a year, but she rented and bought used what she could.
We claimed the AOTC for fees and books.
She worked summers and during college breaks for her spending money.
My S has a partial merit award and a state grant, he takes the full student loans, he had some local scholarships the first year.
He attends a public instate school and it’s about $14,000 for tuition and fees, $10,000 for room and board.
His aid covers about half of it, we cover the rest. We can claim the full $2,500 AOTC for him.
Next year he moves off campus into a shared apartment. Luckily this will cost much less than the $7,000 on campus room charge. And he won’t need to pay for the meal plan but we will help with groceries and rent.
(Freshman) housings options and rates and meal plan options and rates should be outlined on the college’s website.
https://ramapo.sodexomyway.com/my-meal-plan/#
https://www.ramapo.edu/reslife/housing-dining-costs/
Fees are usually a combination of mandatory student fees like health fee, activity fee etc and then course or major specific fees.
Some colleges charge an extra fee for honors (U Mass Amherst and ASU come to mind).
You can ask if her scholarship covers all fees, in addition to tuition.
@mommdc - thanks, I tried not to say much because i didn’t want to get accused of hijacking the thread but we do not qualify for aid and honestly want to keep loans off the table if possible. As nice as it would be to keep the costs down, this is still within budget for us but we will continue to see where we can cut corners…
According to the website it seems honors college students at Ramapo live either in Bischoff or Mackin Hall which costs about $4,900 a semester.
Meal plan is about $2,000 a semester for the most expensive.
Both of my kids did not always have time to or want to eat at dining hall for lunch and dinner, so they got a plan that covered like 10 meals a week in dining hall and then had some flex dollars to get food at other campus food places.
Neither one got breakfast, except on the weekend. They kept yogurt, fruit, cereal, milk in their room for a quick breakfast or grabbed a granola bar if they had early classes.
@Sarrip, I understand. You can pm me if you have further questions.
As for loans, it has been helpful to take the subsidized loans for my D. They don’t accrue interest while they are in school.
This is what I’m doing too. Most schools have that line item at close to 3K/year which I think is pretty ridiculous (at least for my son and what he’ll need). I figure if all room and board and tuition are covered he can pay for his own nights out and deodorant. 
I really don’t want to be paying for restaurants when he has an all you can eat plan on campus. It’s not that hard for them to come up with that a couple thousand a year working Summers or a few hours a week during the school year and they’ll probably be a lot more careful with discretionary spending if it’s their money. My high school senior just started working 8 hours a week towards the end of the summer last year and already has nearly 2K squirreled away to take to college and that’s with only saving half. The other half he’s been using for gas and spending money now.
The family would need to have financial need to qualify for subsidized loans.
I remember when S17 got into Ramapo. I was shocked how high the estimated costs were. He ended up at Rowan full pay. I’ve found costs much lower than they advise. But room and board is expensive - probably about $15k freshman and sophomore year. Books have been much lower than estimated.
What has saved us is moving off campus - I don’t know if Ramapo has great options in that regard. S is off campus in a 2br 1 ba with 1 other kid for under $500/month - and they offer 9 month leases. Renewing for next year gets us another discount off rent. Monthly utilities are under $50. And he works all summer so saves enough to pay for his food and social expenses.
@thumper1, yes, that is correct, subsidized loans are need based.
R&B charges can really vary. My daughter was required to live on campus and required to have a meal plan that cost $2600 (that was 6 years ago; now costs $3000 per semester). It looks like the housing costs haven’t gone up much, but for a very low income area, the college charged a lot. When she moved off campus, it was a lot less expensive. A lot.
Some schools just charge a lot for R&B, and the closer you are to a high COL area, the higher those costs are going to be. Schools in LA and Boston and NYC charge more.
Kids can earn a lot more now than they could just 3-4 years ago. Minimum wage has gone up in many cities. Last summer, in just 3 months, my daughter made about $7k in a state where minimum wage is still $7.25 (she made more, but not as much as she would have if she was in my state). Lots of 10 hour days and some hustle got her some tips, but she needed to make the money so she did.
“” Only to find out that at best, he will graduate in 4 years with almost 70K worth of student debt.””
That is way too much debt for undergrad.
“” getting Pell Grants, State Assistance (TAG), merit awards and scholarship offers; all totaling between approx 15K and 30K; in the end, the amount he will still need to borrow ranges from between 17K and 25K PER YEAR.””
Since you will have one in college and qualify for a Pell Grant, that indicates that you have a low/modest income. If you go down the path of borrowing, then you would be cosigning $12k-20k per year. It’s doubtful that you would qualify each year and then your son would have to leave his school before finishing his degree.
(Were you planning on cosigning his loans??)
Did you run the Net Price Calculators before applying?
Let’s see if we can find a more affordable option.
What are his stats?
What is his major and career goal?
Did he apply to any schools he can commute to?
How many of those schools are public in-state universities? I’m thinking none of them. Because that’s the setup the “33,000” figure is designed around. Private and out of state universities assume you have a bottomless check book to pay the gap. If you can’t afford these schools, he’ll need to probably start off at community college and apply to something more affordable, or take a gap year and apply for a scholarship. Univ of Alabama and Univ of AZ both offer generous merit aid.
We have kept my D, a student athlete on the max food plan, 16 per week plan for 2nd year in a row. I recommend the max plan for at least one year to see what you kid uses. My D is on the cusp of needing the max to not needing it. I don’t want her hungry.
Usually the meal plan can be changed within the first few weeks of add/drop, at least at my kids’ schools.
Both didn’t eat every meal at the dining hall so we went with 10-14 meals in dining hall meal swipes and flex dollars that can be used at other campus eateries.
These were not the most expensive plans.
They both can save money on room and board by living off campus.
Most freshman need to live on campus though, depending on school.