Seriously? I had no idea you’d be taxed on scholarship money!
If it’s for room and board.
We actually got a pleasant surprise from the college my daughter will be attending next year. They told her to submit a video of her playing the piano, and they awarded her a small scholarship per year plus free weekly piano lessons! And she will receive one credit for every semester that she takes lessons. She is thrilled. What a great idea for kids who don’t want to major in their instrument but would like to continue playing. They will expect her to do some accompanying and also play in a couple of jazz ensembles. 
@MaineLonghorn What college? I have a current high-schooler who would love that arrangement. No pun intended.
@brantly - Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. I know it’s not a big name school, but I’ve been very impressed with it. I was disappointed when my older son decided not to go there, so I’m thrilled my daughter will be attending.
A college consultant in Maine somehow discovered it several years ago and has been recommending it to a lot of his clients, so there are a bunch of Maine kids going. My daughter has been playing in a jazz combo with four kids from another town, and THREE of those musicians will be at SU, too! My daughter won’t even have to search for people to play with if she doesn’t want to.
I am familiar with Susquehanna. I know two people who go there. One is from Manhattan, one from NJ.
Cool! D has been diagnosed with anxiety, in large part due to her big brother’s mental illness, and I think SU will be a really nurturing place for her. She wants to major in photography.
My kids didn’t go here, but I think Massachusetts (UMASS) has a very poor system in place regarding tuition/fees/scholarship which is misleading; there is a “tuition waver” if you score high enough on the state mandated tests;
http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/adams.html
So, parents/kids think that WOW! I can get free tuition!!!
This is understandable, as when you search on the UMASS Amherst site, many times the Tuition/Fees number is merged. The estimated 2016-2017 costs can be seen here:
http://www.umass.edu/bursar/undergraduate-estimated-2016-2017-tuition-fees
What nobody tells you, until you really dig into the UMASS website to really look closely at the cost, that the FEES are huge and vastly higher than the tuition. This will probably happen to you after you have received your financial aid package, and you can’t believe your eyes, so you dive into the website:
https://www.umass.edu/bursar/tuition/undergraduate-ma-resident-full-time
Fees Charged Every Semester
Tuition $857.00
Curriculum Fee $4985.00
Service Fee $709.50
Activities Fee $65.50
Shared Infrastructure Technology Fee $125.00
Basic Health Fee $343.50
Honors College Fee * $300.00
Engineering Fee ** $287.50
You will notice that room and board are not shown here.
There are also One-Time Fees listed on other pages.
Now, I know WHY the fees are so high (after searching online) - it has to do with a law regarding tuition, and limit upon which it can be raised. They raise the fees instead. HOWEVER the “free tuition scholarship if you do well enough!” is misleading, and potentially harmful. It ended up costing us less to send our son to private school, as he obtained so much merit (and we received additional aid.) He almost did not apply to private colleges, as he was certain to get the “free tuition” in Massachusetts.
@kelsmom: It depends; to waive the college health insurance generally requires that plan have a cooperative arrangement with a local plan. You would not want to rely on the out-of-area coverage for travel emergencies, in any event. Blue Shield, for example, has Away From Home Care contacts in (I think) about 30 states. Fortunately, New Hampshire was one of them, and I have to say that the California AFHC office was one of the most helpful, efficient & professional HMO units I have ever dealt with in the yearly switch back & forth between New Hampshire coverage (where D had her own assigned physician) and California.
@MazeArtCrew I’ve often wondered if that was a strategy for public schools. In essence they keep tuition prices low, because that’s what people focus on. “Tuition at SUNY Buffalo is only $6500.” But then they raise fees in several other areas to keep up with expenses. Housing for example and food, can cost a lot more. At SUNY Buffalo the cost is $23K per year (not including getting from home to school and the other hidden expenses mentioned in this thread). The tuition is about 1/4 of the total cost per year.
Who isn’t going to pay for their children to be housed and to eat? That makes in-state costs for college just under $100K in some states for four years. Looking at tuition alone, it looks extremely reasonable. But what person can reasonably pay $100K for their education?
In other words, the conversation about the high cost of public education has to become nuanced to include the entire real cost. Nuanced conversations get drowned out by easy, if incomplete, facts like the tuition number that seems to stay low.
"Seriously? I had no idea you’d be taxed on scholarship money! "
And that’s why it is a hidden cost and listed in this thread!
Some schools seem to allow you to opt out of the student health insurance pretty easily. You just declare that you have a policy that covers you. Other schools/states require you to submit the plan and they decide if it is good enough. California and Mass schools seem to be very picky.
Re#32- we learned in spring of D1’s first year that we had to buy a school mandated laptop for her major. We were charged $475 for 6 semesters, well above market price.
@brantly my daughter had. Similar arrangement to Mainelonghorns daughter. But my kid went to SNta Clara University. Small scholarship and free 45 minute instrument lessons weekly for all four years…as long as she played in their orchestra…which was one of her criteria for a college choice.
“And if your kiddo receives scholarships,that pay for room and board, be prepared to pay taxes on that money. This isn’t billed by the college…but this cost comes as a big surprise to many when tax time comes!”
Yes…quite the surprise this was for us as well!
College Wifi out and having to use their phone as a wifi hotspot: Killer bills some months.Horrible.
I once took two online refresher courses at my community college. Since the class was said to be online, I expected that the course infrastructure would already be provided with the basic unit costs of the course and that the courses would be hosted on Blackboard. There is also a section on the schedule that lists the necessary and required materials/textbooks for a particular course. This section is something one typically looks at to assess the cost of materials before registering for a class. There were no materials or textbooks listed for these particular refresher courses. No online textbook code for any online software or anything like that, so I had assumed that there would be no extra costs associated with the courses.
I registered for the courses and once they were set to begin, I get an email from the professor with instructions for registering again for the class on an outside online infrastructure (in this case, ALEKS). We had to pay $35 dollars per refresher course ($70 total for me).
Almost every school has an engineering fee tacked on to the price tag. I know it is not really a hidden fee but I have found the fees vary year to year and by school.
I thought that I could claim all mandated fees for AOTC, then on the 1098T the number was almost $400 lower. Turns out the transportation fee and health fee were considered non qualified fees. I was surprised by this.
I also had known about course fees for lab classes, but was surprised that the Bio one was almost twice as much as the Chem one.
I thought textbooks were $100-200. Was surprised that one cost $350, good thing it could be used for two semesters and we did get an education credit for the expense.
I didn’t have a lot of huge surprises. My son went to a college six hours drive time away and I did underestimate the cost of transportation. The first year he took the bus on break (8 hours) but complained it made him sick. The second year we let him fly but it was always at peak airline price times and we had to figure in taxi from campus to airport and sometimes airport to home if he was getting in at a time nobody could pick him up. The next year we let him take an old car to campus, but of course that’s the expense of maintaining and insuring the car. His college also charged 1900 for health insurance unless we could prove he was covered by insurance that was accepted in the area the college was in and it couldn’t be an acceptance just for emergency care (this was hard for some out of state kids).
That room and board scholarship $$ is also subject to “kiddie” tax at the parents’ rate, as it is considered to be “unearned” income, like investment income in a child’s name. As a result, my kiddo with a full ride pays more than twice as much tax on that room and board $$. I don’t think it is unfair for her to pay income tax on that part of her scholarship, but it seems punitive for her to pay tax at our higher rate, since she is the one who worked so heard to earn the scholarship.