All I can reply is LOL! Really?! Some of you must be rich!!! Did someone say, $200 a week as an allowance?! Wow!
My kids work in the summer and pay for their own personal expenses. We pay for tuition, room/board, books and supplies. We pay for transportation home for breaks. If the kids incur significant health care costs we help with that. They are responsible for everything else. My oldest has been in college for 6 semesters and my middle for 2 semesters and they have never asked for money.
When we visit them or they are home on break we usually give them a few dollars but they don’t ask for money.
We expected to pay for all college related expenses, being very liberal as to what was “college related” - we planned to pay for their tuition, room, board and books, plus intramural dues, organizational dues, sports passes, parking, etc. and our kids would pay for everything else, which would be entertainment, dates, gas, car insurance, etc. They worked during high school and saved so they would have money in college, but did not work during college except for summers. It turned out that they all got merit scholarships, so we did not have to pay anything, but still we did not give them an allowance during college. Having said all this, my husband slips them a $20 every time he sees them, and their grandmother occasionally sends them a little pocket change. My oldest graduated in 2014 and he said he got by on about $100 per month pre-girlfriend, and $200 per month after he started dating (he was also 21 by then, so I’m sure beer money accounted for part of it). This was College Station, Texas. I’m sure $100 per month would not cut it in many college towns.
Has anyone else had a problem with your spouse having a different idea of what constitutes a reasonable policy on allowance money for college? We are facing our first and only child going off to college this fall after a gap year in which he has earned some money (though not a huge amount, and he’s been spending a lot of it). I think he should use his remaining gap year funds for discretionary spending (he has a scholarship covering tuition, and we are paying room and board and books) with only a very minimal contribution from us (maybe $50/month). DH wants to be more generous (actual amount he considers generous as yet undefined). I think that providing less will teach him to use his own money more wisely–both the remaining gap year money and any future summer earnings.
So are men expected to pay all dating expenses? Some 40+ years after the women’s movement?!? Yikes.
Back in the '70s and '80s I frequently split the bill or we took turns paying.
Sadly, there does seem to have been some serious backsliding in the past few decades in terms of gender-role stereotyping (from infancy on up) and other sexist/patriarchal practices. 
(Don’t want to derail the thread, but this has come up several times on this thread, also others.)
I think it is a good idea for the student to cover book expenses (or at least be given a fairly small book-budget to work with) from the summer job/part-time work fund.
The student is more likely to look for online bargains, used books, borrow from a friend, rent, etc if the $$ are coming from her own pocket and not the Bank of Mom and Dad.
My son does seem to make an effort to find cheap books even though we pay for them. And he is not frugal in general.
The allowance after all the costs is easy to handle. What makes thing complicate is the amount for food for students that don’t use the meal plan in the dorm or for students living off campus. Both my kids did not use meal plans because they were expensive and somtimes unhealthy. My son cooked or bought cheap meals and did not drink soda, coffee,… My daughter cooked less, bought more.
My son has a girlfriend. He pays sometimes, she pays sometimes, they share expenses sometimes. When she visits our home, it appears that he covers most expenses (eating out, movies, going dancing). I have no idea what goes on when he vists her home!
Same with my D and her (now x)boyfriend. Shared expenses or took turns paying.
And casual dates (not yet boyfriend/girlfriend) have had costs shared or picked up by the male if he offers to pay.
I’m a single parent (no dad) and I make all decisions.
@coolweather, my kid had meal plan and I checked she used them all but still eat out and buy tons of fresh fruits from the spending money.
Re the male paying for things. I was one person who mentioned that. Buy S and his gf split a lot of costs from what I see. But since they started dating there are just more expenses in general. They go out to eat, movies, etc and things that they would probably not do as often. Plus at Christmas he bought gifts for her parents, brings flowers or food if her family has him over etc. Same stuff she does for us.
MLM and surfcity - well, that’s a relief.
I keep seeing mention here on CC that it is so expensive for a guy to have a girlfriend, which I found a bit alarming since, IMO, expenses should be split pretty much equally in this day and age. Now if one person in the relationship is significantly wealthier than the other, then it would make sense for that person, whatever the gender, to possibly pay more than 50%.
I was also the one who first made a move/asked out my husband. He was shy and if I had waited for him to do it, it probably never would have happened. 
We are paying $40k per year oop for S school, so he is expected to work over summers and save his $ for spending. There are 30 weeks of school per year, he can save $3k over summer that’s $100 week spending, which is plenty when he has all you can eat plan. So he gets $0 from us for spending, he needs to lean how to save and budget just like in the real world.
We pay tuition, she takes money for her incidentals/entertainment/dorm room food for when the dining hall is closed out of her checking. She works over the summer and over break and she gets a dividend check from an investment made on her behalf every three months. She hasn’t run into any problems
We pay all college related costs…and have a liberal interpretation of that meaning. Each kid also got to pic on EC which we funded. They each get $200/month to use as they wished. Both S and D have proven beyond any doubt that they are good financial stewards of the funds they are given. Both have proven they and work, save their own $$ budget their incomes etc. H and I figure they will have plenty of time to work after graduation, when work will be their job. Now, studying is their job.
D graduated, has a well paying position and is eternally grateful for the way she was able to do her college years. S is 4.0+ in his engineering program, works in a research lab (keeps his funds), on a sports team and all around just making smart choices. We chose to fund these.
I am fifty and I want to be adopted.
I think my daughter and her boyfriend split a lot of things, but I’m sure he pays more. DD doesn’t have a car and he does so he’s paying for gas, and she eats at the sorority house but he has an apartment, so he never eats at ‘her’ house and she probably eats at his a lot .
My college roommate’s father set up her bank account with lots of spending money, a gas credit card (for her motorcycle and car), everything was covered. She paid for her boyfriends much more often than the other way around. Her mother still sent her a $20 bill every Monday morning, all 4 years of college. That was just ‘extra’ money. Her mother also brought us a bag of food, toilet paper, cleaning things about once a month. I was very grateful for those survival bags. Sometimes home made cookies too! My grandfather would send a surprise $10 or $20 a few times a year. That was great too.
My kids have been paying their own books, making their own spending money, and paying for everything outside of tuition, room, board, and sorority fees. Their uncle sends them money every so often, and they got some Christmas money. I do think if they have more, they spend more. Both like to eat ‘out’ a lot. Both have many free activities on campus if they want like movies, comedy acts, sports, they have their meals covered, so they don’t really need any money at all. One even does her laundry more often at her grandmother’s or her friend’s house than at school.
Spending $$ – zero. Both guys have worked during school and summers (though S2 didn’t this past summer and has felt the pain this year as a result). They are/were responsible for spending money and books. We send S2 $150/mo for groceries since he’s on a minimal meal plan, and we still come out ahead vs. the regular meal plan. They each got a credit card with a small limit in their own name while in college. I don’t know the account numbers, and I have never paid those bills. By the number of credit card solicitations that come to our house, they both must be current on their bills. 
They do not have access to any of our credit cards. We didn’t provide cars, either, so no expense there. They also took out Staffords.
S1 didn’t buy any clothes in college; S2 does get a few things with his own $$, and he is proud of the good sales he finds online. Neither goes out partying – S1 doesn’t party at all, and S2 likes to have dinner parties in his dorm where he cooks and friends will bring a bottle to share.
We will pay for transportation home and a cab ride back to campus if their flight arrives late at night and they are carrying multiple bags (we love Southwest).
I put $2000 in child’s debit account at beginning of school year. Anything left at the end of the year will be transferred to their savings account - trying to teach them a little about budgeting and being frugal will come in handy when they later want to pay ‘first/last/deposit’ or buy a car. I do buy most of the books ahead of time via ebay/amazon, so the money is mostly spent on eating out, movies, clothes, personal items, laundry, and uber. From the statement so far, it looks like she will spend about $1500 of it.