<p>We have narrowed things down to just a couple colleges and plugging the numbers for financial aid needs as time goes on and am worried about the "extras" or hidden fees . I have heard about vocal lessons, but wondered outside of tuition and books, what kind of surprise or unexpected fees or costs will we be up against. I have heard that there are lab fees, course fees, costumes and other things like that. Trying to budget and wondering anyone's input.</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Biggest potential cost is an extra semester if the student graduates late.</p>
<p>A student who needs remedial course work, or is insufficiently prepared to handle a full time college course load on average over eight semesters, or fails courses and has to repeat them (or otherwise gets no credit for the failed courses), is more at risk of needing an extra semester. On the other hand, a student who goes in with useful credit (AP, IB HL, college courses taken while in high school) has a “buffer” of credits against being a few credits short of graduation due to the above reasons.</p>
<p>Four year graduation rates of colleges tend to line up pretty well with the academic characteristics (high school grades, test scores) of the students, so it is much more likely that the risk of late graduation has much more to do with the student than the school.</p>
<p>If “MT” is musical theatre, you might get more visibility posting this in the Musical Theatre majors forum:</p>
<p>[Musical</a> Theater Major - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/]Musical”>Musical Theater Major - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about MT, sorry. D is a woodwind player and starting college this fall, so have been researching college costs. </p>
<p>If MT is anything like music, you probably know by now that the studio/lesson fees range from $0 to many hundreds of $/semester, so that is really worth checking on. Do MT kids need to take piano? Class piano is one that often has surcharges. I have been very annoyed by these hidden course fees. Some universities keep a list of courses with fees somewhere on registrar page that you can access. Occasionally list might have justification for the fees. Eg, UIUC- “chem lab, $18.75 breakage fee.” Otherwise, scanning the online course schedule and clicking on likely courses yields fee info. D will have $230 in course fees this fall. It could be worse. She could be in CS or engineering! At many places online courses have a surcharge and dept offering the course may add a 2nd surcharge. D is hoping to fulfill the cultural diversity requirement this way. It’s $90 extra for the course she is thinking of. Have to decide if it’s worth the convenience.</p>
<p>If the school is OOS, does your health insurance provide coverage? Found out ours only covers emergencies. So then you have to check your school’s fees to see if they include health ins. At D’s school it is separate. Luckily they offer a basic low cost policy in addition to the full coverage several thousand $ one.</p>
<p>You could check the fees for laundry/printing. It’s small change relatively speaking, but is a cost anyway. Seems like a lot of schools are switching to free laundry.</p>
<p>I assume MT is like music, kids keep crazy hours? So if kids are in meal plan, when will they be able to use it? Are the dining halls open early am and late pm in the part of campus they spend time? If not, are there alternative venues where they can use meal swipes? How hard is it to get food from dining hall to hoard in room? If it seems like they won’t get good value from unlimited, maybe better to choose a lower cost option.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are lots of other costs I haven’t thought of. Travel for us to go there to see an occasional performance…</p>
<p>Don’t know if your child will be in any vocal ensembles, but when my son was in college choir, he was expected to furnish his own tuxedo (women: long black dress).</p>
<p>Your student probably already has a collection of dance shoes.</p>
<p>Your student probably already has head shots, too. With digital photography and the ability to print them yourself, head shots aren’t the expense that they used to be.</p>
<p>We have paid fees for: music lessons (only vocal, but piano and other instrumental lessons have fees attached, too), costume for choir, sheet music. Some schools have the students pay the accompanists directly. Don’t forget transportation. Musical rehearsals/events/competitions are not always on campus. </p>
<p>We have also paid fees for athletics (for the year d partiticpated in a sport- not an intramural), labs, testing (for some areas of study, an outside body administers certain tests), background check, name badge, special software. Lots of art and communications classes have materials fees. Course-affiliated fees range from $0-$200+ per class, and honestly outside of performance and science classes, most are zero. I think this semester, fees added $500 to the bill.</p>