<p>This is more of an out of curiosity question because my finaid and that is done and I am in my third quarter at my college.</p>
<p>I go to a community college and there are five branches of my college is three or four different counties. We just finished up all my paperwork for my second quarter of work-study. I was looking at the paper that calculates how much need is unmet and COA and what I will get paid. The COA for an independent student at my college is $19,000 and dependent 11,000. I beleive that is per year. </p>
<p>So much question is what all goes into that.</p>
<p>COA is typically both the billed and unbilled portions of college expenses. So, tuition, fees, housing, meals, books/equipment, transportation, and misc. personal expenses.</p>
<p>Some schools count non-billable expenses (personal, transportation, books) in their official COA, while others do not. The official COA is important because it is the number against which your “need” is judged and against which financial aid is distributed. For example, Yale includes a certain amount in the COA dubbed personal expenses (non-billable expenses). I’m not sure what this means for people with an EFC. I have an EFC of 0, which means at Yale I don’t have to pay anything but a student contribution and a self-help (work study) contribution. The total is $4500 or so. However, about $3000 is put toward non-billable expenses - meaning that I literally have only about $1500 to pay toward the actual tuition, fees, and room and board. Everything else is added as transportation, books, and spending money.</p>
<p>Not all colleges include non-billable expenses in their COA. Washington University in St. Louis is one, as well as a few other colleges.</p>