Course fees. The activity fee and the sports fee (which I think is mostly the cost of laundry service for the uniforms) are on the website, so I expected them, but then this course has an $8 fee because of a name badge for off campus requirements. This one has a $50 materials fee. Music lesson? more fees. And my oldest, who was in nursing, hundreds of dollars for testing fees (ATI, Kaplan), a background check, uniforms, IDs, etc. I remember one semester they added an extra $1100 to the bill.
And yup, have one launched and it was pricey, pricey, pricey. Don’t expect relocation expenses to be covered. So, apartment (deposit, first/last month’s rent), utilities deposits, might need furniture and even assemble it yourself stuff from Walmart costs money, insurance, car (if kid didn’t have one already) OR public transport pass… it adds up fast and it is well into the thousands. Oldest, who never needed a loan for school, took the direct loan her senior year to fund all this stuff.
Launch planning is something that has been in the back of my mind but only in as much as my son once said he’d never move back home with us and I pointed out that even with a teaching job lined up he’d need someplace to live and a way to pay bills between graduation and when the paychecks started. A direct loan senior year is a very good idea for start up costs. I would never have thought of that.
I do need to look closer at what exactly the “fee” portion of the COA is included in the number they post.
Egad. Don’t get me started. My first year of college cost <$2,000. Tuition $1,240. Room and board $600. Administrative fee $20. Books? Can’t recall but I doubt it was more than $50-75 per year. I had to deal with getting to-from college, which was 1,000 miles from home. We did ride-sharing, but I did fly once or twice and took the train another time. I’m sure the total cost as colleges estimate them now was < $3,000.
Total “cost of attendance” this year at the same college (Reed): $51,850.
I can’t believe it.
When my own kids attended college in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I estimated the total college expense, not counting travel, at about $30K per year for each one. At those colleges today, 15-20 years later: the colleges estimate total annual cost of attendance at $66,160 (RISD), and $71,559 (UChicago). My son got an annual $750 National Merit scholarship at Chicago in 1999-2003.
Junior year jump in tuition…except for the fact that if you have AP credits, this jump could come as early as second semester (a friend of mine) or third or fourth (me).
I should have answered the prompt directly. At RISD the biggest surprise was the cost of tools (yes, tools) and materials. Our biggest bills, after tuition and fees, were from the RISD Store. My daughter majored in industrial design. But other art and design majors also may have high expenses for materials and equipment.
I would say the extra cost that are like a tuition supplement. Since my older D has started, her school’s website now addresses this and families can see how much extra it is. When this university says what their tuitiont is, it is the basic tuition rate. Depending on what the student is majoring in, there are supplemental tuition fees. College of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, FAA etc,. Looks like for new students there is a max add-on of about $4400/yr and fees are $1831/yr.
The other thing I have noticed is that some universities charge per credit hour even for full time students. Instead of 12-18 (or 21) being the same rate. Some universities charge a significant add-on fee for over 18 credit hours.
I knew about the jump in tuition for juniors, but I must admit it caught me off-guard when I saw the amount ;-( but I think that is mostly public unis that do this.
@Oregon2016 You reminded me of another one- Early move in fee in the dorm if your student is in an activity that requires it. Some school dorms waive it, but private dorms do not.
Usually refers to off-campus housing specifically marketed toward college students, but not owned or operated by the college, and not a cooperative house, fraternity, or sorority. Here is an example: http://www.tropicanadelnorte.com/home/
Books. My middle daughter is a freshman in the US… we are approaching $1000 for books and that includes rentals. For an elective class the book is $320, the school forces you to buy the new book in order to get the access code, there is no alternative for buying a second hand book, at that point it ceases to be about the education its all about the money. My eldest is a rising junior in the UK, she has never had to buy a book, the main library and departmental library have enough copies that she doesn’t need to buy them.
we didnt read all the fine print, so we were surprised at the cost of fees attached to architecture classes at D’s college; they range from $350- $950/semester per class.
The cost differences in some of the programs, especially the MBA. After seeing this encouraged my son to go into whatever skills were need to get hired as an MBA professor.
One of the biggest surprises was that room and board is not considered a qualified education expense for tax-free treatment of scholarships and AOTC. And that not all mandatory fees are considered qualified fees. The transportation and health fee were nonqualified, not listed on 1098T and not eligible to be claimed as QEE for AOTC.