I’m an incoming freshman and will find it helpful to know exactly how much I’ll be spending at Texas A&M. I live in Houston and will not be taking a car to college.
Its really an estimate. My daughter attends UT and we were given an “estimate” for the cost of attendance and she came in at $5000 under. Some kids have different cost for different things, books are different costs, meal plans etc.
Add up the tuition, room and board, fees, and books. Those are pretty much the “for sure” costs. Then the rest of the costs are more controllable…depending on how thrifty you are. Books can also have some savings if bought used or rented
Current freshman, I ended up spending 17k this year, that’s probably the lowest you can possibly get it as a freshman living oncampus
My D graduated in 2016. Total COA that last year was about 21,000-22,000. That included all personal spending as well(living off campus). My D had to be very careful with her spending to get it this low. Each year, I estimate costs went up about $750-$1000 in unavoidable increases.