That’s nice of you @Marian to spot your children the money. This thread is about students who don’t have help from home and are therefore hungry.
I said my daughter needed to figure it out and she did. I told her to, and showed her how to, save money from the prior semester, from the summer, by being thrifty to get through those first few weeks of every semester. She actually has more money than I do but couldn’t just spend it and expect there to be more. I have paid for her travel, but again this thread was about student who don’t have that luxury and whether the schools should do more for the students. I do think the schools should get the extra financial aid to the students as quickly as possible so students can get their books and supplies and pay the rent and eat. My daughter’s school is very (very) bad about that but we knew that after the first year and planned for it. Some don’t have the luxury of planning for a late check.
I would have had her stay in the dorm if she couldn’t come up with the money for a rental. If she had done that, she wouldn’t have needed to come up with rent in advance (in fact had to pay for June and July when she didn’t live there). I don’t think schools have to accommodate every choice their students make. If the school provides dorms and meal plans and includes a reasonable amount for travel in the COA but the student chooses to live off campus and doesn’t like the food and wants a car on campus to travel whenever he wants, that’s on the student and not the school.