<p>One thing that you can do is to help your friend sort out her expected expenses in advance. Tuition, fees, books, housing, meals, transportation, etc. Show her how you have used your own college/university’s published Cost of Attendance items to make your own budget. Show her where the COA was more (or less) than you ended up spending. Encourage her to keep track of all of the numbers so that she will know exactly where all of the money is coming from for the fall semester. She should have all of the fixed costs of the fall completely covered before she leaves for college, and she should have enough cash on hand to get through the first month or so until she starts earning money from a job near or on campus. That way she won’t enroll and start classes only to learn that she can’t afford to be there and have to drop out. When that kind of thing happens, often the student ends up owing a boat-load of money but not having a single college credit to show for it.</p>