How accurate is the "other costs" component of COA?

[GMTplus7]

@twoinanddone

GMTplus7, that’s a lot of visiting. My child is perfectly capable of packing her own things at the end of the year. She going back next week alone too. I visited her for spring break to see her play, and Thanksgiving she went home with a friend because it is too short a time period. If you want to spend $10,000 per year, that’s fine but certainly a school is not going to put an outlier figure like that in a COA for travel.

I acknowledge our travel costs are on the high end of the spectrum, but it’s probably unremarkable for int’l students. I mention our costs to add perspective to this discussion.

Our >10k/yr travel cost per kid was for my kids as HS students in boarding school travelling internationally, and it includes parent travel costs + hotel, rental car, restaurant meals. The older one is starting college this fall, and we don’t expect to visit him so often at college. So his associated travel costs should come down.