The thing with the books is that you don’t pay the school directly for those. Your D will buy those from the school bookstore or from some other website or store. They don’t bill you directly for that because they don’t know what your D needs right now. Also, since money seems to be tight, don’t forget that you will incur some costs for stiff for her dorm room. Now you can keep those low, but she will need Twin XL sheets which you probably don’t have at home and some under-bed storage and some other room supplies. You don’t have to go overboard but that stuff adds up fast. Will she need a new computer?
OP- let’s move step by step.
You must, must, must accept work study. These are going to be the best possible jobs that a Freshman can get. They will be on campus, won’t require transportation to get to, and her boss will work with her schedule- so if she has two midterms on a day when she’s scheduled to work, her boss will make it easy for her to swap schedules with another student.
So please accept work study. For your D’s sake, and your own financial future. It isn’t a ton of money in the grand scheme of things, but sophomores get better work study jobs than freshman and by senior year she could be doing something really good which sets her up for a job after college. (I had a friend who was working for a Dean for her senior year work study job and the Dean picked up the phone, called a prominent alumna, and an hour later, my friend had a job interview… and then got the job).
That’s first.
Second- you need to budget the 21500. That’s what it’s going to cost YOU. If your D can help with her weekly expenses via her paycheck- great. But that won’t change the number that you will get billed to you before the semester starts. You aren’t paying for her to work a work study job- the federal government subsidizes those jobs. Don’t get caught up in the debits and credits. You need to budget 21500.
Third- you need to figure out if you can afford this college. And to be very honest with you- if the difference between affording it and not affording it is the $1500 work study job- you cannot afford this college.
The other posters are being too polite to say it but I will. You are a wonderful mom but you are cutting it too close to the line if 1500 is going to be make or break.
Stuff happens. Kids get mono and need to drop a class. Kid loses a textbook and needs to replace it. Kid gets a routine eye infection, can’t wear her contacts for a month, needs a new prescription for her glasses. There are all sorts of things that happen to college kids which can add $500-2,000 to the budget even for the most experienced and thrifty cost cutters.
So if your D can’t or won’t get a job this summer to provide a few thousand dollar cash cushion before she heads off to school, you need to plan on some sort of “emergency” funds for her as well.
I think part of the problem is that you’re trying to keep everything in one budget when there’s a difference between costs you pay directly to the school and costs you pay to someone else.
Paid directly to school: the amount you pay them in your monthly payment plan (whatever that figure ends up being) plus any loans. These payments provide your daughter with tuition and fees so she can take classes, a dorm room, and a meal plan. AND NOTHING ELSE. For this part of the budget, you can figure out how much you need to give the school in the payment plan by adding up tuition, fees, and room and board and subtracting grants, scholarships and loans. And completely IGNORING work study, which has nothing to do with direct payments to or from the school.
Not paid directly to school: what she pays for everything else: transportation, books, clothes, stuff for her dorm, going out with friends, food and drink not from her meal plan, etc. The amount this adds up to depends on her. And the source for paying for these many things is the paycheck she gets from work-study or another job at school, maybe some money she saved over the summer, and any bits of cash left around after you pay your payment plan bill (and your own bills).
The important difference between the two is that the “paid directly to school” is a fixed cost that does not change during her freshman year, and can be figured out as above. And it has to be paid in order for her to keep going to the school.
The “not paid directly to school” can be adjusted. She can go out less, borrow a few books from someone, etc. And if she works hard in the summer and at least some during the school year, she should be able to cover most of it. (Though no doubt she will also ask for some cash or stuff at times.)
So you really need to forget about work-study, and work on trying to figure out how much you will need to pay the school directly. The question is how affordable that is when divided into a payment plan.
Accepting or not accepting w/s does not change your BILLED costs. In your example, you will not receive a $30k credit for FA, only $28,500 if the w/s is $1500. Your example $50k-$28,500=$21,500. Divide by 10=$2150/mo.
Tuition+ Room and Board +fees= Billed costs (and those fees can include hefty, required, sports fees)
That’s your total for the payment plan. Divide it by 10 to get your monthly payment.
You’ll have a lot of other costs you’ll have to pay separately (not to the school, not part of the budget plan), especially the first semester - orientation fee, sometimes there is a one time registration fee, books, personal supplies like toothpaste and shampoo, dorm set up (and deposit), travel costs, laundry.
Your school may not have the 2017-18 tuition/r&b/fees published yet, so your billed costs may be higher than you are calculating right now.
Budget $21,500.
http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html
^published costs for Richmond
The first three items are Tuition, room, board, 4th item is charges billed by UR, that’s what you are looking at.
Not the final numbers because that depends on room and meal plan choices.
I should add that your D may get a student job and earn $1,500 throughout the year. Whether you have her give you that money and apply it to future bills or use it for her incidentals is totally between you and her but the school will be billing you for $21,500 in your scenario.
OP, Budget $22,000. Because after your bill and figuring all this out and lugging your daughter’s boxes up 3 flights of stairs in a heat wave and worrying if she’ll like her roommate and her new job, you’re going to want a nice dinner, a drink, and a trip to the spa.
FWIW, a lot of schools post jobs and even hire before the school year starts. My son was able to get his job a month before he showed up, and it made the adjustment so much easier. He interviewed over the phone. Sometimes things like a bookstore job, the kid will actually work for Barnes and Noble or Follet or whatever book company the school is afiliated with. So keep an eye out!
@austinmshauri @wisteria100 @blossom Thank you all and others. Ok, this $1500 isn’t going to kill this for us, we only have to come up with $9700-$12,280 for the 1st yr using the #'s from the FA office. For us, this will be hard but not impossible. I am trying to figure out what will be billed and budgeted in the 10 mos as I want to keep the amount I am paying each month as low as possible. I am a realtor, I get paid in big chunks but only if I sell a house. I’ve been in the biz since 1993 but when the market went south in 2009 I did something else. As things are better, esp here in Charleston, I am getting back into it but it’s lean at first. The good thing is I can pay the bill down by quite a bit out of each sale, the bad news i I can go 6 mos w/out a sale & then am locked into a high payment. That is why I am trying to get the monthly payment down as much as possible.
I do know there are expenses involved with living, toiletries, dorm stuff, sheets, etc (oddly Richmond does not use twin XL just reg twin). I can get a little here, a little there and put it together, that’s fine. My parents have $ in a college savings plan and I am trying to divide by 4 and stay in just what we allocated for this year. I think I will have to eat into another year however. My ex husbands income (some of you will remember this drama) was cut in half from 2015 to 2016 so I hope to get more aid next year so hope that I can eat into the next yr to get our monthly payment down for this yr. It’s a gamble but then again, I hope to do better in RE so that give me more $ to use for her school.
My insur does cover her OOS (BC/BS) I called when she went to W&M for 3 wks last summer. Didn’t realize the books would not be a financed thing but that makes sense, good to know I can subtract that. I found their division of fees on the website so that helped.
Room & Board means meal plan & dorm, is that right? I know if she requests a private room or something (she won’t) that could increase the cost.
The schools breakdown of total cost also included $1000 for pers expenses and $2160 for “estimated other” so I assume those 2 are not included in the financed cost either?
Thank you all for staying with me, for yoruupatience, I appreciate it!
You may need to budget more depending on classes she takes. Labs cost more. We had a pyschology fee added this spring. Parking. Student ID. And sometimes several other small fees the first year. But your lowest is for sure 21500. My sons school allows the students to apply their work study checks to their balance. I personally just let him keep it for incidentals. His books and other items were a couple hundred each semester and we got lucky.
@blossom, I agree that $1500 isn’t a cushion. But OP’s daughter has a wealthy grandmother who’s offered to cover $14k/year.
@cloudysmom, Are you paying for this on your own or do you still have help? If your ex-MIL will pay, does she plan to send the money directly to the school? If so, you only have to come up with $6k plus money for books and travel.
Laptop might be another big expense if she doesn’t have one.
You owe the money.
Basically the school is offering her a job.
As another family interested in UR I have to admit some curiosity as to the type and amount of need based aid they are offering you. On the calculator, their aid program looks good but if tuition plus r&b come to $65,000 not including other expenses and they offered 30,000 for a low income student-that’s not such an impressive program.
Yes, don’t count on future aid yet. It might change as your and ex’s income changes as well. And of course tuition and other charges tend to increase every year.
Sometimes a school only has a limited amount of choices for freshmen as far as room and meal plan go.
It should be listed somewhere on the website.
Austin- I don’t disagree with you- but the OP needs to “save” out of her commission checks to cover her estimated taxes as well. Cash flow can be challenging in this line of work and college costs go up every year…
@Wilson98 @twoinanddone Ok, you guys got through to me - I was adding in all charges but it’s just BILLED charges. The school gave me the top # w/out telling me some of it is not billed so whew! Those billed charges are the only ones I have to make payments on! Eureka! Sorry everyone as I said, my brain cannot fathom math at all, totally artsy brain. I just can’t even make the concept of math make sense. I am the reason my kid got a 23 on the ACT in math & pulled her others high 30’s scores down!
@mommdc I just found those too, but thank you! I think they have a required freshman plan but need to check on that.
@redpoodles You are so right - I need all that NOW, lol!
She won’t have a car/parking and not too much science required but good point, will probably be a fee.
@austinmshauri My ex H’s mom is the wealthy grandmother who will pay $14/per yr. My parents have $30K in a college plan so trying to just use $7500/yr. After that we will have to pay yes. The #'s I listed above were off the total the school gave me but after looking at their costs of just T, R&B, (they actually say “billed amount”) it lowers what we need to pay so $7620 or $10,120 depending upon if we use the allotted $7500 for this year or bump it up to $10K. Both grandparents will pay school directly when we get our bill, I assume, whatever makes the most sense, in an effort to get bottom line monthly payment down.
@dragonmom3 Please know that this was due to my ex husband’s finances - he made $100K in 2015 and it made our aid award not nearly as good! The school has been wonderful, very responsive and did lots of hand holding with me and counseling when i was trying to make my ex fill out the CSS Profile. He messed it up but isn’t helping to pay.
http://controller.richmond.edu/tuition/room-board/index.html
^some info on room and meal plan choices
My D’s school bills in July and the bill is due in August. So once you get the semester bill you could tell both grandma’s how much to send to the school and then you will know how much you have left to pay.
Look at the financial aid award. What is included in the Cost of Attendance? You will definitely need to budget for tuition room and board without including work study. COA usually also includes books, travel (to and from school) and personal expenses. With the exception of perhaps the first semester some of those costs can be defrayed by earnings from work study. The thing is you have some control over some of these costs. Do you fly or drive, where do you purchase her books, and how much does she spend on incidentals while at school. My D gets work study and budgets about half her work study earnings towards spending money. She actually spends less. Either way it is higher than they budget for personal expenses.
I suggest budgeting the $1500 into your needed contribution. As the semester goes on you will have that money in reserve if it is not used because of her work study. If due to work study she does not need it, apply it to next years costs. It would seem the most stress free way of confronting this.
Glad this is starting to make sense! Yes, you have to figure out the BILLED cost to the school after the scholarship, and see much of it you can pay with loans, your savings plan, and your mother-in-law’s contribution to get it down to a reasonable payment plan amount (and without using up too much money you will need for next year).