In a recent thread, a discussion began about the figures for cost-of-attendance. Cost of Attendance is supposed to be a more all-encompassing number for the cost of attending college, including books, personal expenses, etc.
When comparing costs across colleges, I typically prefer to use tuition & fees plus room & board as the costs across those tend to be pretty standardized across schools, whereas I find too wide a range for the “other” expenses to be useful, as some colleges are more generous in estimating costs than others.
Do you find that the COA costs reported by your children’s institutions have been accurate? Were they too high? Too low? Too high in certain areas and too low in others? Were you (or your students) ever surveyed about what the financial expenses have been for these areas?
Feel free to add in other questions/discussion points about COAs.
As an FYI, here are the numbers used for some NYC and Chicago area schools, with the data pulled from the College Board’s website:
Our Purdue costs were less than the COA estimate on their website by about $1600/year. Our D was in a quad freshman year which saved us some money and she never came close to the book estimate.
A lot of public colleges assess fees for specific programs, like engineering.
Some charge upperclassmen more (Michigan/PennState) so if you are coming in with a lot of credit you might be paying the higher rate sooner than you had expected.
Books and expenses for both my kids were substantially lower than estimates but my kids are frugal. Some might even go so far as to say they are tight with money. Not sure their experience refutes what the average cost would be at either LAC they attend.
I can say with some confidence that students willing to put a little legwork into getting their books can see big savings. D23 discovered a textbook exchange on her campus (basically students freecycling their textbooks with other students), so she spent less than $50 this semester for books - while taking a course load that required 9 books across all her courses.
P.S. Transportation costs have been higher than estimated…that’s a big one especially if your children go OOS and need flights.
I find that the cost for “books and supplies” is usually overestimated. Most students I know purchase very few textbooks, and buy supplies cheaply online.
I feel like there could be some real information in those books and transportation numbers. Your mileage will vary, of course, but knowing the central estimate could be useful.
But I agree about those personal expense numbers. Maybe that reflects different student populations with different habits, but whatever is going on there strikes me as unlikely to be a useful guide.
Our Duke costs and our Penn costs have been less than COA (but our insurance qualifies so we do not pay that fee at either school, and books and miscellaneous also comes in much lower at both—but miscellaneous is hard to define and is not on the bill, so it is difficult to judge) .
The room, food/dining plan and tuition and (non-medical insurance) fees have always been exactly as quoted each year with no surprises.
I have not kept careful track of my D22’s books, transportation, and personal expenses because she is solely responsible for covering them. But knowing my kids, I am sure D22’s personal expenses are considerably higher than the college estimate while her books and travel are probably lower --I think she often borrows library copies, finds pdfs and buys used books rather than purchasing new hard copies.
My guess is that with D24, most of her actual personal expenses will be lower than those estimated by the college. She just doesn’t spend money the way that her older sister does. Her book budget may end up higher than her sister’s (because she likes hard copies not pdfs), but everything else will be less.
That said, I think from a financial aid perspective, depending how generous one’s college is and if a kid has gotten a merit or outside scholarship, higher estimates for books, personal expenses, and transportation can be helpful on a very practical level.
For example, D22’s outside scholarship is a last dollar one. It won’t help me reduce my parent contribution, but it will cover her work and loan expectation up to the COA and that includes personal expenses. Essentially that means that a higher estimate for personal expenses + transportation + books can result in a higher stipend from the scholarship organization even if D22 skimps on buying books and uses the money for Ubers and restaurants.
Similarly, the financial aid package from D24’s EA college includes a stipend for the full estimated cost of personal/transport/books. Whether or not she ends up using that 4K stipend for items like travel and books (vs. hitchhiking to campus, borrowing library books and spending the rest of fingernail polish and candy) is up to her. I think if she is frugal (and she is), the stipend will be more than enough so that she doesn’t have to work during the academic year. This is very unlike D22 who gets a refund from the college (due to the outside scholarship), but she still has an academic year job because even with the stipend, she uses her weekly salary for additional personal expenses.
In both these cases, for my kids, it was actually better to have a high COA. But I can imagine for other kids, those high estimates could scare them away from even applying.
Great point that being generous on the books & other expenses can be financially beneficial for families. For schools that meet full need or for any “last dollar” scholarships, the higher the COA, the more need can be met. Additionally, I believe that 529s can be used for any COA costs, so one can also receive tax advantages that way in comparison with schools that are stingier in defining the COA.
I just don’t think that using COAs is very helpful for families who are doing cost comparisons, especially if they’re full-pay and aren’t looking at the NPCs.
My D20 is in Boston. She has never spent nearly the estimated cost for books and supplies, I think her most expensive semester was about $300, most are closer to $150. Perhaps that is due to her major (Social Work). Her friends in Nursing spend a small fortune on that stuff.
Her 12 month off-campus apartment rent + food allowance totals about 75% of the cost of living in the dorms for 9 months.
The misc. expenses category, though? She spends a ton on uber and lyft and at restaurants, bars and clubs. About $5000 a year.
Yes, especially when you are looking at those NYC universities --I don’t know Chicago as well as New York, but that is quite a range in personal expenses for some of the New York schools where their neighborhoods are a subway or bus ride from each other. Or for that matter what accounts for Columbia’s personal expenses being more than 1.5x as expensive as Barnard’s. Or is just that Columbia wraps transportation into personal?
My students really seem to hate spending money on books. Even cheap books.
It could be they hate owning them (as physical objects that they have to lug around); or that they just hate laying out the cash.
But my suspicion is that, in the age of PDFs and other electronic files, they just don’t look at media of any kind as the sort of thing one pays for if one can help it.
You can use 529 funds for some things in the published COA, but not all. For example, the categories of personal expenses and transportation are not covered. Health insurance is also not covered. However, books and other required class supplies are covered, along with more obvious expenses like tuition and room & board, and you can also use the 529 to buy a computer if your kid needs one.
If you are using a 529, it’s important to keep track of the school’s published COA each year, because these published numbers determine the maximum reimbursable amount for certain things such as off campus housing and off campus food.
The listed COA for off campus housing was also helpful to my son in negotiating a budget with his roommates in their housing search.
The easy part was finding three other guys he wanted to live with. The hard part was convincing his roommates’ families how much it actually costs to rent a livable apartment near the university
It was helpful for him to be able to point to the COA and tell them that’s a typical amount that other students are paying…
Yes, there could be added fraternity or sorority expenses. But sometimes living in the fraternity or sorority house is less expensive than other housing.
Course sequencing can add to cost. My kids brought in a lot of dual credit, but since they were in engineering the progress in their programs required long sequences of pre-reqs in their majors.
It’s important to understand not only that a credit transfers in, but exactly how it will or won’t be counted in terms of meeting necessary pre-reqs.
D’s actual costs at Vanderbilt were much lower than the COA. Her personal expenses were a lot lower than the budget, and she bought as many books as possible used. S’s costs at a state school were lower, but not a lot lower … state schools base COA on “full time” attendance, which is 12 credits/semester. S took more than 12 credits/semester, and tuition was charged by credit hour. In addition, upper level courses cost more.
Don’t forget, a lot of kids go Greek. I think that’s a big differentiator depending on the school.
Did not add to parent expenses in the Thumper household. That was considered discretionary spending and the kids had to fund that on their own.
Her 12 month off-campus apartment rent + food allowance totals about 75% of the cost of living in the dorms for 9 months.
Same here…in Boston and in CA. Both lived right adjacent to their college campuses…excellent locations. Both shared places…one kid was in a place for 4 people, and the other for 7.
The misc. expenses category, though? She spends a ton on uber and lyft and at restaurants, bars and clubs. About $5000 a year.
I have no idea what either of my kids spent on misc expenses. They were expected to earn this money themselves. We did give them occasional cash gifts, but most discretionary spending was done via their earnings. My kids might have spent a lot, but this didn’t add to our costs to send them to college. They both had really good college jobs!
