There’s also the fact that most states leave private college pricing transparency to the colleges themselves.
So the enumeration of fees at Clemson is the long list that you’ve talked about, while the fees at, say, Furman might not be broken out as finely; similarly, you’ve seen the way WPI does theirs, but UMass Amherst might have fees broken out in a more granular way like Clemson does.
Disclaimer: I do not know the specifics of the relevant laws/policies in South Carolina or Massachusetts, so either or both of these possibilities may or may not be correct.
Fees at UGA (not including and lab/course fees) are $1500/semester. Fees at Ole Miss are $160/semester. Quite the difference! But I think it all works out the same.
William & Mary charges about $3500 in mandatory fees PER SEMESTER. Pretty sure they started ratcheting then up when Virginia froze tuition all those years ago (not frozen anymore). Health and wellness is $500, “Intercollegiate athletics” $1200, and the list goes on. There are so many I can’t even type them out.
Yes, U Mass had to do the same thing due to legislative limits on raising tuition but legitimately higher costs. It hurts poor smart kids who win the “Abigail Adams” or other scholarships which give you … free TUITION.
I guess I didn’t realize how simplified we have it at my older kid’s school! And also, I’m glad that I’m not alone with all of this fee business.
And @Creekside231 - those W&M fees are mind boggling to me. I went to W&M back in the stone ages, and I don’t think we had a fraction of those things! Of course, as I type this I realize I never saw a bill, my parents just handled all of that for me. Which makes me think I should probably show the bill to my S25 - just so he knows what all goes into his education costs.
That would have been so difficult to not say anything. But I am an urban planner (and a planner in general), so I usually like to have the backup plans also figured out. My D has designed her freshman schedule around a possible major change from nursing to pre-med in case she changes her mind. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I wouldn’t rule out a transfer to another school if he wants to do urban planning later, instead of waiting until grad school. I think many people have masters degrees because they came into this too late. However, there are plenty of planners who have jobs with only bachelors degrees. My son is one – his dad (me ex) had convinced him to major in finance. I knew that his ADD mind wasn’t going to succeed doing something he didn’t enjoy…and had wished he had done architecture where he was excelling. After 2 long years as a pre-business major he discovered he couldn’t change to architecture and got his urban planning bachelor degree. He is now living his “dream” in sunny Florida but spends most of his time in entitlements on the private side making sure that we all get our fill of fast food chicken with notoriously large drive-thrus. There are clearly worse things he could be involved in “planning” in Florida.
About $1500 in fees for the semester. But the interesting one is the $250 nursing fee differential. That came on and then came off my students bill when she dropped the 1-credit “first year seminar” type of class. Any class with “Nursing” as the department gets charged an extra $250 fee PER CREDIT HOUR!!! Guess who will be taking anatomy next semester in a different department instead of nursing…
And while I understand that labs may have a cost, I was surprised to see a fee for English 101.
I’m fascinated by the fees! Especially the ones related to academics.
While I understand that only students taking a lab may require equipment and supplies that are unique to that lab, there are students who may be taking a course with a professor who has a particularly high salary because of reputation and/or academia having to compete with commerce for that person. Should they pay more? If a section of Japanese has only 4 students, should those students pay more to cover the cost not being spread over a larger section?
I realize some of this is determined by public funding formulae, but it’s very interesting. Thanks all for sharing!
Wow, the fees are amazing.
Paid our first bill this week as well. Kiddo was so relieved and grateful - it was kind of cute. Sort of like us giving him the green light that he can leave in a few weeks!
Summer is… summering along. Crazy busy, but good. Just 3.5 weeks to go now. He managed to finish all the paperwork more or less on time (except his ID photo, which was late). I think getting through all that tedious stuff started to make it more real and exciting for him too. Starting to look at the school bookstore and planning that part out (rent vs. buy and used vs. new). Finally got him to clean out some of his clothes and identify which shoes can be recycled, so we’re inching closer to getting a sense of what to pack. I think it will actually be less than I thought? I have all but abandoned planning the dorm room for the time being.
First-year writing courses often carry additional fees for two reasons: They are widely paired with extra support infrastructure (e.g., heavy, often required, use of a writing center), and modern writing courses are often taught in highly interactive classrooms that require extra tech expenditures or support.
But then again, course fees in first-year writing courses have also been found to correlate with lower student persistence, so there’s also a widespread push for colleges to simply build those into tuition for everyone, since students have to take at least one first-year writing course pretty much everywhere (even at places like Rochester without a gen-ed curriculum). But as others have pointed out, if you’re forbidden from raising tuition, you have to get the money for it from somewhere.
Hello all! It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here. Quick update on us, S25 is living his best life this summer as a counselor out in eastern Oregon leading camping and rafting trips. I’m waiting for him to tell us he’s taking a GAP year to live in a van…hasn’t happened yet though!
He’s done nothing as far as getting his dorm room together…“I’ll just bring like 10 t-shirts and my guitar” so I’ve had the pleasure of mentally decorating a dorm room this summer. D23 had an Amazon wish list I think she started in sophomore year of high school so this is new.
Finally, the signals from S25’s roommate are a little off. S25 has emailed the roommate and sent him his phone number, then located him on Instagram and messaged him there. The roommate accepted his friend request on Instagram but hasn’t responded to any of his messages. So he’s not like backpacking in Central Asia this summer, he’s just not responding. Weirdness right? Any suggestions on what he should do? He feels like at this point he’s done and he’ll just meet the roommate on move in day.
I think this is not a bad attitude to take. I mean, he reached out, what more can he do? As long as he goes into it reminding himself that no one said the roommate needs to be a best friend, they just need to live together with a reasonable level of courtesy. The lack of response doesn’t feel polite or courteous, but in the first few weeks of school they can talk about expectations and if S25 is having a hard time with that, then hopefully the RA can help him sort it out.
FWIW, the only communication my S25 has had with his roommate is that (1) they follow each other on instagram; (2) neither has called or emailed or texted the other; (3) I think the messaged on instagram to confirm move in days (there are five possible move in days) and S25 told him we’d be happy to rent the minifridge. Nothing else. No remote effort at becoming friends or bonding. I think boys just don’t do that the same way that girls do. So yeah, it feels weird because back in the dark ages when we had to send letters I sent my prospective roommate like three letters AND we talked on the phone - at long distance rates no less! But neither of my guys have communicated much with the future roommate. I think the meet on move in day plan is pretty common.
Thanks, this makes me feel a lot better. D23 was pretty much related to her roommate by the time she moved in I too sent letters and talked on the phone long distance to my roommate Didn’t make her any less crazy in the long run!
We’d like to get an answer on the fridge rental but S25 thinks it’s fine so I’m letting it go, just prepared for some social awkwardness.
The only reason I knew anything about my S22s roommates was because one of the mom’s made her son get cell numbers for the other moms. The boys (it was a triple) never spoke/communicated pre-start of school once they picked each other as roommates except to pass along the mom phone numbers. Then one mom started a text thread and the three of us chatted about fridge, microwave, rug, beanbag chair. It was handy to have other parents to plan with.
This (parent chat) hasn’t happened with S25 and he would never, in a thousand million years, want parents talking to parents. So what we know about roommate is really just what S25 can see on Instagram. He’s moving in a day ahead of S25, so it would be handy for him to feel comfortable enough to say “hey, now that I’m here, I think we need/you should bring…” but I do not see that happening.
Oh - and on the fridge - since S25 wouldn’t communicate to discuss who should do it, I told him to just send a message that we would. Which he did. So if you want to make sure that there is a fridge, then you could take that approach. One last message to say “hey, I want to make sure we have a fridge, I’m going to go ahead and rent it” and that’s that.
Mine hasn’t spoken to his roommate yet either-we figured our name/email in the housing system but they refuse to reach out and other kid hasn’t either so maybe it’s a perfect match - ha.
The school supplies a fridge/microwave combo so that is sorted by default luckily.
My S23 didn’t have much communication at all with his random roommate. It was fine. D25 has been messaging hers a bit. My daughter chose pink florals for her side, the roommate is doing white and black and pops of red.
Girls are so different. My D25 is in a quad room with a kitchen/living area with 3 other girls. They are coordinating and talking a lot….. down to the details for their coffee bar.
