Prices for Room & Board

PurpleTitan
Tue, 26 May 2020 14:07:56 +0000

Yankeefan20:

bgbg4us:

R&B is pricey for sure. It’s more than tuition at every state school in our state. Of kids we know, about half live on campus, and half live at home while attending the public U in our city.

Things to consider: check into the rules with your school. Lots have rules about first time freshmen; eg: if you live 30 Minutes or farther away = mandatory on campus; or 19 or older = choice of apartment or on campus. Some meal plans may be cheaper to help with costs . And AOTC tax credits can’t be used for dorm life.

We’ve found that after the first year on campus, it is a bit cheaper to live in an apartment or rent a house - so remember that as you budget down the road.

For our kids, we’ve paid for the dorm at a school 1 hr away. There’s something fun about being in a dorm, and both of us have fond memories of it from 30 years ago when we were in college. But with everything going on right now, there’s no right or wrong. good luck!

“It’s more than tuition”

This is why I’m asking if you think more should be spent for R&B than tuition.

It kind of doesn’t matter, though.

Tuition is tuition and will be what it is.

But there are costs and benefits to both staying on campus and commuting and that’s what you have to consider.

As an extreme example, uni in Germany is tuition-free. Uni in Belgium is ridiculously cheap (a few hundred Euros a year). So in both cases, students will always be spending more on either room and board or commuting/food costs at home than on tuition.

No German wonders if R&B is “worth it” compared to tuition (because tuition is zero). Rather, they compare R&B with the costs and convenience of other living and eating arrangements and choose accordingly. You’re essentially in the same situation with tuition being covered by fin aid. And some Europeans do take out loans so they can live away or closer to uni.