Confused about how much he will have to borrow

You need to look at housing and dining options. It’s very possible there is a less costly dorm room option, and a less costly meal option. This could reduce your billable costs to less than $14478.

The other costs costs are not ones the college will be billing you…and you do have some control over those costs.

Your student can take a $5500 Direct Loan for freshman year which would reduce parent OOP to under $10,000 for the year (billable costs), and that’s if you can’t find or they don’t have less costly room and board options.

For personal expenses, we asked our kids to get jobs. They paid for all discretionary spending…and in our case their books as well. Both also had jobs in the summers before college and that money was used for personal expenses as well.