Cornell and Texas same thing. Nickel and dime. Even one of my kids in the sorority has to pay for laundry. CU worse than UT though. Except books way cheaper for Engineering than Business at CU.
Worse, Cornell didn’t even refund the laundry money paid last year when kids had to leave suddenly for covid and unless you were living in a dorm again you were sol this year with that money because you could only use it in the dorm machines. The only good thing is my kid was so cheap she only put $10 at a time on that card and had about $5 left but imagine how much money they “scammed” off kids who were not living in the dorms this year or stayed remote and won’t be in dorms when they do come back. Terribly really. They also don’t let you roll over your meal swipes which only go from week to week instead of monthly like most schools.
This reminds me, does Michigan require any kind of student health plan. In other words, do we need to prove we carry a certain kind of health insurance and if we don’t we have to buy theirs? Texas asked for nothing and actually has fantastic coverage. We provide ours but no matter what tests and Dr’s my kid has seen, we pay no more than $10 so even if our EOB says we owe $25 from that, UT writes it off. Cornell just charges $10 per visit but no one likes CU Health so she has her own Dr there in Ithaca but hasn’t had to go this year thankfully. But we have to prove we have a certain kind of coverage which they have to approve or else they make you use their own which is like $3k additional. Not sure many people know what they’re walking into when they are ok taking out loans and then I think that adds undue pressure to some of these kids when the parents expect perfect grades which is really unfair. Have fun do the best you can, that’s all I ask.
Michigan will offer you a plan for about $2,000/year, which we have not signed up for. Health insurance isn’t required. It can be a wait, but Michigan has a hospital for health care services, which they’ll bill back to your heath care provider.
Thanks. So are their costs basically what we see on the COA page but will be adjusted for 2021?
Ouchy ouch:
Tuition - $52,144 (Engineering)
Housing - $12,034 (can be different based on rate type of dorm and slightly different meal plan/dollars)
Mandatory fees - $214.19
Other than those mandatory fees, do they have any other fees they add in? I know the rest of my costs will be books, travel and personal expenses but I view those as separate expenses. Also, how much is the sports ticket for kids? What does it get? Do they uber a lot around there or basically walk everywhere? That’s another thing I want to know if I need to factor in.
Not sure what is included in “mandatory fees,” but you will see a legal and gym fee on your bill too. If you don’t have your own printer, and use the printers provided by Michigan, they will charge you for paper used.
Also, certain classes will sometimes add fees, like labs and such. There was a Covid fee for $50 added each semester.
In terms of housing, if your S gets one of those big houses around campus, with lots of friends as a sophomore, then you can really cut down on the housing cost for sure.
Season tickets - In June, you should be able to buy football, basketball and/or hockey tickets. It roughly breaks down as follows:
Football $175.00
Basketball $150.00
Hockey $150.00
With fees, the price for all three sports was around $515.00. You opt in/out of those sports. I think most everything else in terms of sports is free or near free.
I think those are included in the mandatory fees except printer which he will probably want his own because he has his own business and if I know him, he will want to keep doing it at school, which means needing to print shipping labels. We’ll see how long that lasts with his schedule.
Football and basketball pretty consistent with UT which covers all sports although they can’t always get seats for football because they don’t limit the tickets sold to students which was a cluster against LSU two years ago. Hockey I don’t see him caring enough to go to buy season tickets at least but this gives me a good idea. Thank you!
Here is the breakdown of mandatory. Sounds like it covers what you mentioned. Even cornell charges extra for the fitness center!
Registration Fee $80.00
Central Student Government (CSG) $9.19
COVID-19 Fee $50.00
Student Legal Services $8.50
School & College Government $1.50
University Unions & Recreational Sports $65.00
The IM building is a steal for $65/year. It was remodeled 5 years ago and it’s huge with nearly everything I need. Although not all the equipment is optimally placed for ME.
The Big House holds 112,000, so students w/o season tickets should be able to find seats for most games. Parents weekend and Ohio State games are difficult. I’d say ND too, but they won’t play for another 10+ years.
I’ve attended one hockey game in my life and it was a pre-Covid Michigan game. My D thinks in some ways, they’re more fun than other sporting events.
Been lurking the past few months and all of your MI ‘shilling’ has been super helpful for us. I actually wish I could DM my thanks, but too new to have that option. We are also in SF Bay area on our child was deciding between MI and UCSB/Cal Poly and has chosen to head to Ann Arbor for many of the reasons you have listed here and previously.
I’m curious about how long is recommended to stay before/after for drop off/move-in in Ann Arbor. I see school starts August 30th, but since he doesn’t have housing info yet we don’t know how much earlier to arrive.
I laugh at you and the exercise equipment. You should seriously see my kids. My girls can barely lift 10lbs. They barely weigh 10lbs. Probably part of the few freshman to actually lose weight freshman year instead of gaining it. They definitely do not take after their mom. My oldest same deal super thin. This one is the athlete but doesn’t work out. Likes to play tennis so hopefully he actually gets involved in intramural tennis or something otherwise he will look like his parents at some point sooner than later.
I thought about two years ago I was sitting in the biggest stadium that I would ever have the opportunity in my life to see a game in when I was sitting with 100K other fans at DKR Memorial in Texas. Who knew that would not be the case? The worst thing ever about that game was at 8pm when it started it was over 100 degrees. No thank you, never again. Not sure I’m thrilled about seeing Michigan in November either but it has to be better. Many days in my youth I sat through freezing my butt off at Solider Field seeing the Bears with the windchill effect in the playoffs, so if I could do that, I can see a Michigan November game! We hate ND in this house so that would definitely be the fun game for us to go to.
@anon4school From past years as far as move in, if all things are the same, it looks like it will be the Thursday and Friday (depending on what you’re assigned) before school starts. Maybe they will space it out further but that’s what it was this year too. They sure don’t give you much time to settle in. I would make hotel reservations. Parent weekend is Nov 5-7 and I don’t know what happened but literally I happened to look it up, booked a hotel, told my ex he booked it then my daughters decided they deserved to come and when my ex went to add a room a few days later, the prices skyrocketed. It made me wonder if they had just posted the dates when I booked our rooms because sometime between that day and 3 days later it went up 400/night. @sushiritto if you’re still holding that extra room, you can probably sell it for a mint! lmao
@khrmail Omg, I shouldn’t say this but he actually makes a ton of money from this but it drives me crazy but he has for a couple years now been selling all these trading cards. He never played pokemon but we had those cards, but he played some other game called Vanguard or something I think. Finally decided to start selling those and they were selling for a lot, then started with the pokemon but then because he is highly intuitive, realized he could buy them cheap as a set and resell the individual cards for a lot so that’s what he does. Buys and sells them like crazy so instead of getting rid of them, we now have a ton more of these cards. Of course, nevermind that it has also caused me a pain in the neck with his tax return this year because of the sales and dealing with that and the taxes he has to pay, but he makes some good little extra money from it but I swear he better not be sitting here all summer and not getting out of the house as it gets nice, hah. How he has time to do this with his schedule is beyond me.
Every kid will be different. Some you can drop and go. Others may need a little hand holding. Personally, I’d stay a couple nights, if coming from CA. We went out to dinner my D’s new roommate and her parents in town at a great tapas place between S. Main and S. State. You will probably have to go to Walgreens/CVS and BB&B for “stuff.” Might take more than one trip.
I know it’s going to be difficult, but try and buy as little as possible. It really sucks to ship all that stuff, put it into storage and/or toss at the end of the year. The custodial staff do a great job, but the garbage cans are overflowing with waste.
For D21’s move in at SLO, we have reserved 2 nights at a hotel. That would be my minimum in Ann Arbor, if you have the time in your schedule. Even if your kid is immediately off doing their own thing with newfound friends, you can have one full day to relax around the town and explore things.
Also, I come in the day/night before move-in, especially if you have an early AM move-in.
Be prepared for winter football games, including those hefty bag ponchos, which in theory, keeps you dry (it won’t). The last game I/we attended was 10/26/19 against ND at Michigan. It was cold and they had a deluge of rain. We were completely drenched, even wearing a water-resistant poncho. Who knew rain goes sideways too.
Yes, I still have both hotel reservations for parents weekend. I have yet to decide if I’m being cheap or do I want to splurge because we haven’t visited since that 10/24-26/2019 weekend.
We put our son on it. It ended being cheaper then our business plan with like a $250 deductible. Which is low and it’s a great plan. Think it’s less then 1500 or so. Don’t remember.
BTW, you can move in earlier than everyone else, if you become one of these MLEAD student move-in helpers. Training is virtual this year, because of Covid, but move-in won’t be (hopefully). Pre-Covid, the MLEAD’s would arrive a few days or week ahead of everyone else.
That’s nice for students who need it. My kids have are on an amazing plan. They will realize how lucky they have been once they turn 26 and have to start paying their medical expenses and get their own insurance! Even my son that works in CA has never gone off that plan since it’s so good. I wish I was so lucky.
Hint : Hilllel and another org sells football tickets and for Parents weekend if you want to support that… You can get most games day of for around $100/each but some games much cheaper.
Here’s another helpful hint for Michigan newcomers, the best seats are in the middle rows of a section. You don’t want to be too high up or too far down low.
Speaking of Michigan bills, lo and behold, I just got an email/invoice today for $25 for one of D’s labs. And I paid for the Winter semester back in January.
Super helpful, thank you and @sushiritto! For parents weekend - booking now! Are there events Friday and you need to come Thursday night, or is Friday to Sunday enough? Keeping in mind that any SF-AA flight is going to arrive in the evening.
