<p>If you had to support just yourself, could you live on a college student budget?</p>
<p>Use the cost of attendance for typical nearby colleges and universities, but not including school related expenses (tuition, fees, books) and medical insurance. If different budgets are shown, assume off-campus, non-commuter. Let this be the student living expenses.</p>
<p>Now assume that you had a job such that your income, after covering taxes, job and commuting related expenses, and medical insurance, were the same as the student living expenses calculated above.</p>
<p>Would you be able to make it work?</p>
<p>A second thought experiment:</p>
<p>If you have an N person household, could you support it on an income of N times the student living expenses, assuming the same calculations as above.</p>
<p>Just getting a place to live that is safe and decent with a student budget in our town would be pretty tough. Hawaii is a VERY high cost of living state. The governor estimated that a family of 4 would need $78,000 or more to live MODESTLY. </p>
<p>If I NEEDED to, of course, we could share a home or apartment. A MODEST one or two bedroom apartment around here could easily be $1500 or much more.</p>
<p>My sons room in an apartment he shares times the number of family members we have is more then our mortgage. The apt is not furnished with a party rm, pool, flat screen TVs, or granite, etc. Run of the mill college apt (that he’s thrilled to have). Break out his food budget times number of family members and it’s more then we spend on groceries. He’s pretty frugal. Doesn’t eat out a lot, but I do budget for him to pick up sandwiches for lunch and an occasional burger/pizza for dinner.</p>
<p>Medical insurance is one thing; medical costs are another. That’s a very real world consideration, not easily controlled. Things will change, at that income level, soon.</p>
<p>I think it may help to specify a number. The remainder (roughly R&B, right?) is different at a state U than many others. If my kids had to live on, say, 12k, could they? Yes. 1k/month, with wise choices, a mindset for limitations and practicalities. You didn’t exclude apt-sharing. </p>
<p>If you mean, could we live in the outside world for that 12k or slightly less- not in HI or other high COL areas? I’ll see how the thread develops, but with the same wise choices, it is possible. (Many of us did this as grad students.) I have long thought that the kicker is in the discretionary expenses. And, that does include how one approaches food costs. </p>
<p>But, believe me, I know this is not easy. Recent report states the average elderly woman lives on 16k (I don’t know what resources that is.) At that stage, certain compromises aren’t feasible.</p>
<p>Since the college students in this family had annual college expenses of about $50,000 give or take, yes…I could live on that budget as one person, easily.</p>
<p>Students generally don’t have to pay for child are and individual policies or many expensive healthcare expenses. They also can defer expenses until they are able to get a higher income, like a car and expenses associated with it.</p>
<p>Our vehicles consume a lot of gas and maintenance expenses as well as insurance. As a student I wouldn’t have a vehicle. Most students that live o or near campus bike, walk or catch the bus. We have some of the highest gas prices in the US; over $4/gal now, with heavy traffic. </p>
<p>Most students know they’ll be living frugally and can do so with others for the four + years while earning a degree. There are many in HI and elsewhere living on very low incomes. Right now, our D has a room in a house that is just slightly more than half our mortgage payment. At times she and S lived in housin that was more than half our mortgage payment. </p>
<p>When we were paying both their college expenses and our mortgage, we were all very careful with our spending but are glad not to have to always live that frugally. </p>
<p>Not quite sure what the point of this exercise is. When I was a students axes prior, I lived frugally enough that I recorded my daily expenses every day and could account to the dime where my funds went. I never felt deprived and at the end of my college and law school had enough in my savings account to pay off my 4 digit loan. </p>
<p>I don’t think my kids have felt deprived while living on a student budget either, as they are doing so with friends and peers.</p>
<p>UCBA…annual college expenses…that included tuition, fees, room, board, personal expenses. I think we could live on that easily!</p>
<p>Housing costs (both were in high rent areas) were high. Room/board costs were in excess of $14,000 a year…which was more than our mortgage and food budget here.</p>
<p>I actually didn’t even know what the R&B cost was at Michigan. It’s about 10k for 8 months (13k for grad students). That’s way more than I live on right now. Not particularly sure why those numbers are so high… Michigan has a really low COL. Though I suppose Ann Arbor is more pricey than the rest of the state (I don’t live in Ann Arbor so I’m not sure what rent is like there).</p>
<p>That’s why I mentioned in the first post to supposed that the amount of money is net of medical insurance and taxes, and the amount is per person (so someone caring for a child would have that much extra, since the child is another person).</p>
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<p>Basically wondering how people with high enough income to not get any financial aid anywhere complain about just scraping by. Or how they expect their kids to live while in college on typical student budgets.</p>
<p>When folks are students, they tend to live around other students and tend not to have to worry about current or future expenses of their kids, ex-partners, kids of prior relationships, and/or parents. They also don’t have to fund retirement. As folks on other threads have pointed out, insurance of many kinds and medical bills can really mount and they rarely consider their expenses as a net excluding these expenses. </p>
<p>Some have high housing expenses as well, as well as travel for work or to be with lived ones. </p>
<p>A lot of folks FEEL like they’re scraping by, no matter what their income, some live within their modest wages and resources. Some have obligations like those I mentioned in the 1st paragraph. Some just live differently. Face it, some are just poor at handling finances and spend funds faster than they can earn it.</p>
<p>HI, I was kind of surprised that the grad school COL budgets were only 3k higher for grad students than undergrad for many of the reasons that you mentioned.</p>
<p>Maybe they expect grad students to be younger and just have the bare-bones budget, with any other stuff expected to be funded by student, since they’d have to pay it regardless of whether they chose to attend grad school?</p>