Allowance in College

alwaysamom
Sat, 24 Dec 2005 22:53:16 +0000

Catherine, my D is a junior at NYU so I understand why you’re asking the question. First of all, I’m curious why you say she’s limited to 15 meals per week. Actually, I don’t believe there even IS a 15 meal a week plan! It’s 5, 10, 14, 19, unlimited etc., depending how much you want to pay. I’m assuming she’s opting for a traditional style dorm since you’re talking about mealplans. Most kids have a mini-fridge and microwave in their room so that they can handle the extra meals. My recommendation, based on my Ds experience is that the fewer meals on the mealplan the better is the usual story. Granted my D had studio three days a week so she had lunch away from campus on those days and sometimes dinner, too.

Transportation costs are one thing to keep in mind. NYU’s transportation is notoriously bad and unreliable. Yes, they can walk a lot but sometimes it’s necessary to get up to midtown for a show or uptown to a museum for an assignment and walking is out of the question. Seeing shows in the city is not prohibitive as some have indicated here. Most shows, including those on Broadway, now have rush policies so that you can see them for $20 or $25. My D and most of her friends have probably averaged a show every couple of weeks in the time she’s been there. There are many better ways to get tickets than relying on NYU’s ticket central.

It’s rare for a kid not to have a printer in their room. There ARE many computer labs which have printers available but who wants to be trudging off to a lab when they finishe a paper at 2 a.m.? Printers are so inexpensive these days that I don’t see that as prohibitive.

My D works in the summers but not during the school year. She simply does not have the time. Her spending money has always been covered by her with us helping out when necessary. We pay for tuition, housing, books, transportation home for visits, clothes, etc. She has found that spending money varies from week to week. Some weeks she spends $150, some weeks less, depending on what is going on in that week.