My DS is at the point of starting to compare offers. One thing he noticed is that the cost estimate for books, trnsportation and personal costs are almost double than those costs as his other colleges.(over $8000) I am at a loss to explain it since we live relatively local and his other phily school is not high like that. Do you think those extimates are accurate assuming normal spending habits. Just wondering what others thinkj.
@robincorn where did you find that estimate? If it’s the Net Price Calculator, it’s had a lot of errors on it for a while now. Anyway I’m at Temple and over $8000 is not accurate at all.
It was the net price calculator though the temple web site had high numbers as well.
$8000 is definitely way too high and I am guessing it is an erroneous figure. My D is at Temple and books have cost between $300 and $500 each semester so far, with a trend of professors specifying a custom TU edition and/or requiring use of on line codes for homework, etc, which precludes saving much money through cheaper rentals or used editions.
Living locally, your travel costs would be minimal. Costs for incidentals or eating out will vary depending on your spending habits, but you should be able to estimate those yourself. One thing to be aware of is that tuition can vary depending on what school or major you are accepted into, so be sure to consider based on your situation.
That’s almost definitely a bug. Temple does have a pretty sizable commuter population, since it’s got a lot of public transportation options from other parts of Philadelphia and the suburbs, but there’s no way that a SEPTA pass would set someone back enough to skew the entire “transportation, books, and personal expenses” estimate that much.
If you’re living on campus, as magmag noted, your travel costs will be negligible (probably just subway tokens every now and then for trips to Center City or University City; maybe more if you’re doing an internship there and need to buy a bigger pass). Textbooks are about what you’d pay at any other university; you should budget about $300 or so (that said, thanks to online PDFs, professors providing scans of the texts, cheap Amazon rentals/e-books, and inter-library loans, I’ve probably paid less than $100 most semesters – including some when I lucked out and avoided paying anything at all!).
agree with @OwlAMA it’s a glitch (I commute from the suburbs); but my books have been high this first year – $800 altogether 