How does COA on the aid statement work?

BCell2011 · 06-20-2011, 02:16 AM

Cost of attendance is approximately $18,000. What exactly are they factoring in? I can't imagine that they could define a flat rate for things like books and cleaning (laundry, etc).

If it's really ~$10,000 they're expecting and the other $8000 is for books, computer, laundry etc then the preparation for financing would be a little different. Like instead of a $12,000 loan I'd need a $10,000 loan because I already have a computer

Danielle2400 · 06-20-2011, 08:59 AM

Cost of attendance includes the following: tuition, school fees, books, housing, food,
travel expenses to and froim school, incidental expenses and in a few schools the cost of buying a laptop computer.

BCell2011 · 06-20-2011, 12:38 PM

So basically, if I took out a loan for the exact cost of attendance, I would more than likely have a few thousand unused dollars

aforautumn · 06-20-2011, 04:07 PM

yes. for some people its a very accurate number, but for a lot of other people, its very high. i'd say its more or less the upper bound.

i made it with about 12k my freshman year. stopped paying attention after that.