We are trying to compare costs at various schools. The various schools have listed personal expenses from 1065 to 8375. Is there really such a difference in personal expenses between schools? Some colleges are in a expensive city versus rural but I can see the difference being that much and wonder if I should take into account the various estimates or just ignore them when comparing schools. Travel costs can not count for the difference. It is also interesting that the state schools have higher personal costs listed by factor of 2 or 3. What have other people done? Do the schools that list the higher personal expenses really have higher expenses?
Schools seem to vary widely, so use your own judgement as to how much your child will spend. If you drop your child off with adequate multi-season clothing and a year’s supply of shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, etc, then likely he won’t be buying locally at perhaps higher prices.
Some schools are located in areas where there are many enticing places to spend money…fun restaurants, entertainment, etc. At those schools, assume that your child will spend more.
Tip…many parents put “spending money” onto the child…meaning that he must earn spending money (and maybe textbook money) over the summer and during the school year. This encourages the student to look for cheaper books (online or used) and to be more careful with discretionary money.
It depends on your situation.
It will cost more to get to school if you are flying coast to coast than it would be for a student who is a one hour drive away. When my daughter was flying home in factored in a cost of $100 each way to cover taxi fare from airport to campus, baggage cost (if she had to check baggage/overweight luggage), food in the event of a layover, etc.
It would cost more if you are a student who has always lived in a warm climate and not attending school in Maine, Boston, Syracuse, etc and now you need all winter clothes.
It may cost more if your kid attends NYU/Columbia/Barnard/Fordham -Lincoln Center where most kids will find entertainment off campus in NYC that it would be at a more suburban/rural campus (for example Williams tries to keep concert cost at no more than $10). Even then, you child might want to do an excursion off campus, do a day trip, go skiing, taking a spring break trip, etc.
It could cost ~2k, if you don’t have a school approved health insurance plan and you need to have health insurance before you step foot on campus.
IF your child participates in the greek system, dues, formals, etc can be costly. If they are not in the greek system and are invited to formals, dinners, etc, it can get pricey.
The little incidental things like toiletries (my kid is a product girl and has shelves of stuff), laundry detergent, dry cleaning can add up quickly.
I think you should check the school calendar and price out tickets during peak and off peak times.
I understand the various ways personal expenses can very but doesn’t account for the variation in the cost estimates… For example Temple lists personal costs of 4302 and University of Penn lists 2060. They are both in Philadelphia so shouldn’t the costs be about the same? If anything I would think University of Penn would have higher personal costs since it is a private school that has more affluent students so more high cost activities would be done by the student population.
Are books part of the equation? That can be a difference between schools, as some schools have 4 classes per semester and other 5. Some schools may have more course materials available on-line vs physical books.
Not surprised that the state schools list expenses as higher, as they are not likely to cover things that privates can afford to cover.
Sometimes schools include some higher estimates so that people can borrow more.
I don’t think it follows that a private college assumes that kids engage in more high cost activities than a public college. At many private colleges, LOTS of activities are free- concerts, lectures, athletic activities and gym membership, themed movie weeks, etc. If you have a kid who is going to eat on the meal plan and do free campus type activities it isn’t hard to cut your spending.
The more important item is what will be YOUR student’s personal expenses? Those are something that are not billed by the college. As a family, you have some control over those costs. So…forget what the college says…and instead figure out what YOU will be spending…or allocating.
As noted above. Personal,expenses are included in the cost of attendance. But really…they are YOUR personal expenses.
Thanks for all the replies. Basically what I am hearing is that I need to determine what the personal expenses are, and if a college puts a higher personal expense rate in their COA I should ignore it when comparing costs at the different colleges.
I have found that the higher estimated expense has turned into better financial aid because it is weighed against the school’s determination of a family’s ability to contribute.
One big difference can be if the student meal plan includes any flex $$. If it does, the school might not include $500 or so in the personal expenses estimate for snacks and the occasional pizza. Another might be if the student activities are included as part of the student fees. My kids both have everything included and they just swipe their cards to go to a football game or basketball game. My nephew pays $150 or so for a season ticket to football, and I’m sure there is another fee for basketball, that’s not included in his student fees. If there are a lot of those extra expenses, the COA can go up $1000 or more.
You could ask the FA office how they came up with the estimates. There is a federal formula, but it has a lot of wiggle room. About 3 years ago, many schools increased the personal expenses amount and even developed different costs for instate and OOS. Why? The NCAA allowed schools to give that amount to athletes as a stipend, and some school had high stipends and some pretty low. Nick Saban wanted his players to get as much as the football players at Penn State were getting and it was a difference of about $3k, so Alabama’s COA was raised by about that much.
I think when you are comparing schools you should take the COA with a grain of salt. You know YOUR kid and his/her spending habits. I have one who is a spendthrift but she’s poor so she can’t spend a lot no matter how much the personal expenses allowance is. The other one is cheap cheap cheap, and she never spends anything.
Penn may try to keep the estimates low because it guarantees to meet need. They don’t want to give grants to kids for unnecessary spending. Temple is not giving grants to cover the COA, so it may push some of the costs Penn absorbs in student fees, meals, lab fees, etc., onto the (Temple) students.
One of my daughter’s school has really high tuition, including an extra $2000 for STEM majors (but no lab fees), and very low ($325/sem) fees. Other daughter has low tuition but higher fees, plus an extra charge for labs, dance/theater classes, some weird printing fee, etc.
I’m guessing the difference between Temple and UPenn MIGHT be in the things that are included and not included. I suspect, as @blossom does, that you’ll be expected to pay for more things at a public than a residential private.
But I’m interested to hear other thoughts on that.
What school gave the $8000 for personal expenses? That seems crazy high to me. Perhaps a typo?
Schools set their cost of attendance in various ways. It is an art, not a science - and believe me, it’s not all that easy to develop one. I survey our students, but they report expenses that are all over the map. My task is then to try to figure out where I should set amounts for each category. It’s hard! There are techniques provided for setting the COA, but it ends up being a bit of a crap-shoot.
My suggestion when you compare financial aid awards is to ignore those amounts, and only look at the firm costs (tuition, housing, school fees, meal plan).
You will need to budget for those extras separately, but they can give a misleading picture because of all sorts of variables- and often there are ways to cut down on those costs depending on the student’s willingness and ability to live frugally. (For example, buying used textbooks rather than new). On the other hand, sometimes a student’s habits, activities or needs will drive up the out-of-pocket costs in ways that aren’t counted in the college estimate. Examples: winter wardrobe needs for students coming from warm climates; fraternity/sorority dues; extra travel costs for students who want to come home for Thanksgiving & spring break.
So do your own budgeting for those incidentals for each college -you can use the college estimate as a guide, but the student is probably going to spend the same on text books and incidentals at any school. The real difference from one school to another are urban vs. rural vs. suburban and attendant transportation issues, climate factors, and possible differences in the types and costs of activities a student expects to participate in depending on school selection.
I would echo what others have said: see what’s included in that “base rate”. Many smaller schools require everyone to be on the meal plan so it’s included in the base rate. Some have a non-optional student activity fee that includes free admission to all campus events so that every student can participate, but if not, it’s an extra. Schools with big time sports generally allow students to buy discounted tickets, but they’re not free. Many schools charge for music lessons while others don’t. At some schools, different types of housing have different costs. I think you’re going to need to read the small print because the cost of living is unlikely to be the only driver of the difference.
The figure for misc. personal expenses is quite discretionary.
Here’s what ifap.ed.gov has to say:
Obviously car expenses can make a big difference if a college includes them, likewise Greek membership fees, buying books vs. renting, including cost of computer or not…For my D, we did not pay any attention to that category at all. I did investigate airport shuttles as I knew from experience that can be very expensive. Books are just unpredictable. We knew D’s spending habits would not change significantly.