D’s school estimates $1200 books and supplies, $1000 travel, and $3000 personal expenses. First year we actually spent $800-900 books (engineering), $700 travel (just her airline tickets, to move in, come home for winter and spring break but not thanksgiving, and someone else paid her trip from school to her summer internship), and under $1000 personal expenses (she’s not a big spender!). However, DH and I both flew out for move in which involved hotel and car, I flew out once to visit, and we spent at least $400 at Target outfitting the dorm at move in (everything from mattress cover and lamp to medications and snacks). There was also a fair amount of shopping done ahead of time for winter clothes for a drastic climate difference between home and school.
A more local school estimated $1500 travel and $1800 misc. It was a 2 hour drive. We would not have come close to that amount of travel or personal expenses, especially since we could have brought most of the dorm supplies from home that we had to buy on location at the school she attended, and she wouldn’t have needed a new wardrobe.
It’s not hard to do your own calculations, but I think when we did this for ourselves, we failed to properly account for the first year “startup” costs. The rest of our own estimates were pretty close.