Generally, the cost of college is associated with tuition, room and board, textbooks, travel to and from home and so forth. Some costs are paid as they occur, but should they be considered part of the cost of college. For example, parents may take their student to visit several campuses. Costs could include travel and lodging, food, and the care of younger siblings. Colleges charge application fees. Lots of students participate in study programs for the SAT and ACT. How many students, and parents, complain about the cost of taking the SAT and ACT. However, students take these tests multiple times and each costs money. How does all this fit into the family budget and the college budget for next year and the rest of college.
You are correct, there are many hidden costs. What is reasonable depends on family resources. Some students never visit the schools that they apply to, never take SAT or ACT prep classes, and only take these tests once. Other students are provided with all of the extras you describe. Like everything in life, the range of costs is on a long continuum.
We don’t consider expenses prior to college enrollment in our college budget because we can not take them out of our college savings. But we do feel money spent now on SAT prep will, in the end, save us some money based on merit scholarships and stress to get some of the gen ed requirements covered by AP, DE, and CLEP.
Thousands of dollars go out the door before your child is even accepted anywhere! Visits, (hotel, food, gas, airfaire, rental car) standardized testing, (multiple times), AP testing, prep classes, application fees, sending test scores (if not using free score send), transcript requests (our HS charges $5 per transcript), audition trips if your kids is a music/acting/theater major, and I’m sure the list goes on.
It’s not something that parents of kids applying to college tend to think about, but there can also be unpredictable costs at the end of college.
What kind of costs am I talking about? It varies. It might be a business wardrobe. It might be a car if the student needs one to commute to a new job and doesn’t already own one. It might be several months of living expenses if the young person’s new job or graduate program doesn’t start immediately. It might be the initial costs of renting an apartment if the young person moves to a new city (first and last month’s rent, security deposit, deposits for utilities and Internet). It might be furniture. It could even be all of these things – or it might be none.
It’s hard to plan for such unpredictable expenses, but I think it’s important to remember that they’re coming.
Well, a few other (possible) hidden costs would be buying formal or business suit during college for interviews, job fairs or a reception of some sort that requires a dress shirt and tie.
Biggest hidden cost is the health insurance.
Before college, those application fees, test fees, travel, etc really do add up fast. I never expected that and it was a surprise when S would say, “I need $XXX amount to send in our CSS form or this other thing.” Honestly, I felt like i was writing a check every other day for something college related. All this money was going out the door before we even started college. Money that could have be used FOR college tuition.
Sometimes, your family’s insurance is good enough that the college will accept it as an alternative to the insurance they would otherwise require.
If the student is female, you can skip the tie. But she might need shoes of a type that she wouldn’t already own to wear with her interview suit.
Though note that some of these costs (such as for job hunting) probably would be required even if a kid doesn’t go to a 4-year college (unless they’re interviewing to be a cashier or something like that).
Yea, my son went to NSO yesterday and college charged $300 for it. He even did not attend a class yet, but school already charged him. COA is not actual amount.
Prior to entering college I felt there were a lot of expenses for senior year events too. Graduation fees, cap and gown, prom, and other senior festivities to add to the list of expenses already mentioned. These things made me feel like I was writing an awful lot of checks senior year.
As far as hidden college costs I believe depending on what program a student was studying there were additional lab fees per course especially in engineering. I noticed this each semester we were billed so expect some misc fees added to tuition, room, and board. There were also fees for freshman orientation. Aside from purchasing books we also had to pay fees for access codes for online material used for class.
A lot of the expenditures OP and others have identified are luxuries that can be whittled down, if not dispensed with entirely, if costs are an issue for the family. It’s nice, but not necessary, to travel all over the place to visit colleges, and by confining the student to in-state alternatives, visit costs will plummet. In a two-parent family, a college trip can be done with just one parent so there won’t be any child care costs for the other kids. Prep classes for standardized tests are optional–there are plenty of books (free at the library) and online options for preparation. It’s usually unnecessary to take the tests more than twice, and many can take them just once. Business attire can be bought inexpensively with some judicious shopping. Books can be rented or purchased used and re-sold. Much as we like to shower our kids with stuff and provide endless opportunities, as with any other family expenditures, the sky can’t always be the limit.
Per SAT/ACT costs, I always looked at it as a drop in the bucket. There was good scholarship potential for my kids, and retake was fine by me if needed. For us, college visits were mostly far away from CO, but we usually combined them into visiting relatives and/or vacation.
I am going to say that the biggest hidden cost is going to be the cost of failing to successfully launch a kid into adulthood. The costs of dropping out of college, being unemployed, and is living in your basement.
Whatever all of those other things cost, when they are able to financially support themselves and live independently, it is worth it.
Costs begin if a family home is bought because of the location in reputable school district.
I don’t think they do a very good job of hiding the extra costs - they are all right there staring you in the face.
My daughter is an athlete and I spent a ton on her club team, travel, NCAA qualification expenses, equipment, CDs sent to coaches between the end of junior year and her signing in Nov. It was money well invested as she did get a scholarship, but if she hadn’t it was money already spent.
It seemed like I was just hemorrhaging money last summer, before two kids started college. Airline tickets for orientations, then more for moving in, hotels, dorm supplies (and we tried to use what we could from home), final paperwork for schools (and NCAA), deposits, fees for club sports, a bike trip for bonding (and getting to move into the dorm a week early!). It’s just a lot of $50 here, $30 there, $200 at Target for bathroom supplies and some basic cleaning stuff and OTC meds, a new bike, two new computers, etc.
One daughter doesn’t have that much stuff at school, the other I know will take less than half of what she took last year. Really, buy less stuff, take less stuff. This year, I’m not planning on spending anything except one airline ticket (already purchased). If it is not on that tuition bill, I’m not paying for it.
Much2Learn- Preach it!!!
Supply fees can throw a wrench in a kid’s living budget. My D took a general theatre class (not a design class) and got smacked with having to buy 80 dollars in highly specific paint for a project mid-way through the class. No advance warning.
Summer storage is something a lot of families don’t consider if they aren’t in driving range of a school. We looked at the company my D’s school works with and they wanted 500 bucks for the summer for a very small unit. Yes, they picked up the stuff at school and delivered back to school in Fall but 500 bucks is steep! Thankfully, one of her friends had a car and they could go out into the community and find a larger, more affordable unit to share (50 bucks a kid.)
Interesting! I agree you can go way back to moving to the “right” school district if you really think about it!!
We don’t count anything now. Visits are just less exciting vacations for the year or 2. The flights have been minimal, likely 3-4 when all said and done. Which would not be easy for a lot of folks. One I paid for w miles tho. It can get super expensive!
Fees!! It is amazing how many fees people talk about that you have to dig for on the websites!
Of course, XL Twin bedding, which we don’t use here! A laptop lock or desk “safe”.
For us, a hefty unexpected cost was the internship required by son’s major. We always knew about it - but did not understand that it was a 6 credit course that we had to pay for! So - we paid $2800 for the pleasure of him having an unpaid internship this summer. Peachy.
Same surprise as rockvillemom for the required summer internship that we had to pay for the credits.
Printing cost were surprisingly harsh too.