<p>My sons bought Subaru Imprezas for about $12k total a piece. A 3-4 year car loan would have run about $300 a month, depending on time period and interest rate and with most but not all financed. Add insurance, maintenance, gasoline, parking. For their cars, neither of them had a much in repair incidences. Basically, one can commute and have a nice car at the end of the period of time, My college grad is has a paid off car that seems to be doing fine and hopes to keep it for at least another 3 years unless his wages really take off. </p>
<p>IMO for about half of the room and board at a collegeis what it costs for a kid to commute. The cost of feeding more mouth and other costs are more able to be absorbed than the money one would have to pay out. We went over the numbers for my son who got a full tuition award to a local school. He’d likely get a part time job around here, and have his car–he paid cash for his, and with summer earnings, free room and board here at the house, he would have been in very good shape financially. A lot of his peers did this and are loving it. They are enjoying NYC in high steppin’ style that a lot of their classmates who are paying full freight and room/board at some private NYC colleges like NYU, Fordham, Pace cannot. My friend whose son is at NYU and living there, is constantly harping on him about the money because it does hurt when one has to pay those costs, and it’s difficult when the temptations are there and you can’t afford them. My son straddles the middle going to a school that we can afford with some margin, but he doesn’t have the discretionary income that those kids have that are commuters locally, AND whose parents are fairly well to do. It’s not something you truly understand until you live it. My son can’t take his car to college–can’t afford to do so and only can afford to keep it because we use it as our second car in exchange for paying the costs while son is at college. Win-win for him and us,but yes, officially DH and I have only one car, and a junker at that while we have all these tuition payments. </p>
<p>I know that eating out and social things are discretionary costs and luxuries, but when you raised your kids in those luxuries and he’s around others that are continuing to live that way, it’s really a struggle to give them a reality check. The old parent-child confrontations start. The benefit of having my son away, is that he has his bank account, his budget and no parent around. It’s all his world and he can start afresh. If he had gone to school here and could barely afford it, the dichotomy and contrast of how we live and how he is supposed to live would be difficult to reconcile. It 's an added stress, believe me, as I see it around here, especially around here.</p>