Yes, before committing to a college that requires flying, check out the air fare during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Even Amtrak jacks up their prices over Thanksgiving.
Some programs require extra equipment, clearances, certification test costs, and prep classes for the test (such as nursing).
I bought my kids the “fullest” meal plans they could get. That’s not an area to scrimp on, IMO.
@TerryB15 I see your point about the food, but I do think that room is a “college cost.” I have 3 kids. My oldest is going to college this fall. So I still have to pay my mortgage and property taxes at home while also spending the $ for room at college.
Maybe when my youngest goes away to school and all of the kids are out of the house (and like you say we think they won’t come back!) then I can downsize.
I agree with @Pizzagirl that food is not an area to scrimp on. I just question whether getting the fullest meal plan is necessarily the best option.
My kids ran into situations where they couldn’t eat some of the scheduled meals because they had activities that conflicted with the mealtimes, and they needed to buy food from places that didn’t take the “points.” In that sort of situation, minimizing the meal plan but giving the kid adequate money to buy additional food made sense.
Sometimes you have to just try it first semester and see how things go. I think people should be aware, though, that if your kid says he (more often he than she) needs more money for food, it’s probably the truth.
Did the school offer to-go? I seem to recall that one of my kids’ schools offered something whereby you could pre-order a sandwich, side dish, etc. to take with you on the go if you knew that you couldn’t get there for lunch.
I think the answer to your question is also very campus-dependent - is the campus set up so that the meal plan is only at your dorm cafeteria, or “flows” to all dorm cafeterias? How spread out is in the campus? What options are there for quick meals in libraries, student buildings, etc.? How near or far are grocery stores or places to buy food? For those places, can you buy ingredients or can you only buy pre-prepared foods? I think it’s a fair point but I don’t know what generalities can be made - it seems very campus-specific…
It certainly is campus-specific. Each of my kids ran into different situations. One was on a campus with an all-you-care-to-eat system, and the other on a campus where you paid different amounts for different kinds of food. Basically, you were paying cash, it’s just that the cash had been deposited in your account at the beginning of the semester.
I believe that on the all-you-care-to-eat campus, you could get a box lunch to pick up at breakfast time but you could not get a box dinner. But in any case, my kid didn’t want to get box lunches. She preferred to have a smaller meal plan and get the difference in cash. I saw no reason to object.
But then, I’m one of those slothful parents who quickly evolved into giving each kid all of the money they would need for everything for the entire semester in one bank deposit. I suppose this is a bad idea, but constantly writing little checks got irritating.
Fwiw I did an automatic transfer each month for my kids so no monthly check writing. This reminds me that now that grad season is upon us I’ll have to cancel it. Thanks Marian 
From reading the meal plans and dining options provided by universities on this thread alone, there is a vast difference in quality, flexibility, and pricing. Looks like my dining experience wasn’t too bad. There was to-go at anytime of the week, the plans were extremely flexible and affordable, and the dining halls were open from 7am until 2am apart from the weekend. Sure there were transition times where certain good stations had zero food available like the dreaded 10am-11am window, but food of some sort was always available. There were markets near any dining hall or large commuter/faculty hot-spot made of fresh meals and produce.
Developing a COA is really, really difficult - I should know, because I have to do it. It is truly an “estimate,” designed for an average. Don’t want to go too high & encourage over-borrowing (since way too many students will just borrow everything they can). Don’t want to go too low, because you want to make sure students can get enough aid for realistic costs. Have to use average credits for the program, which often translates to fewer credits than the typical student on this forum would take (for example, the public U where I used to work used 12 credits for developing COA). Don’t want to be too off-the-mark, or there will be a steady stream of students wanting a budget adjustment (and upset because the regulations only allow increases for certain reasons). Don’t want to go too high because you’ll scare folks off who might not really need to spend that much for their indirect costs.
As I tell my students, I know that budgeting is just a WAG (a certain type of guess …) - but you just have to do your homework in terms of researching what it costs to live in the area, calculate your transportation costs, and live like a poor student. It’s an art, not a science, to try to figure out your true COA.
Going back to the main topic, I haven’t been thinking about this as long as other people, but it does seem to me that your expenses at home will go down when your child goes to college to at least partially offset some of the living expenses.
My grocery bill will definitely drop, the utility bill will go down since the one leaving is the one who is always turning up the heat and who takes hour long steaming hot showers. Also the items that colleges seem to include in the “Other” category for the most part seem to be expenses that the child would have anyway no matter where they lived - they are really living expenses not anything specifically related to college. Also, once she is gone, I won’t have to pay for her gym membership, her parking pass at school, all the athletic fees that our public high school charges, etc.
My son rarely eats three meals per day so 15 meals per week plus a bunch of extra flexiLOble funds (a big thing there apparently) should be more than enough. Unlimited eating while he is in the dining halls, and they also offer boxed meals to pick up if the student can’t stay to eat (which would have been GREAT when I was in school). The school is big enough that at least some dining hall is open from 6 am to 10 pm, and there are local businesses that take the flexible funds open even later.
I don’t think the off-campus comparison is fair, especially when utilities aren’t included and the people living together don’t get that. We moved off-campus senior year of college, and the criteria was to be the same cost as living on-campus in a double. His FA wasn’t going up, and my parents wouldn’t pay more, so it was a no-brainer. If anyone wants to “move on up” to nice digs off-campus, that is their problem.
We can deposit money in two types of funds for him operating off of his student ID, funds for food and funds for other stuff. One nice savings is free washer and dryer use! How I hated being at a top college and having to dig up quarters!
One more thing to think about is what I call “transition” costs – that is, the costs your student faces at the end of college, when he or she transitions to a job or graduate program.
For some students, these costs may be minimal. Consider a student who gets a job in his hometown in a workplace with a casual dress code, returns to live with mom and dad, and has access to excellent public transportation. And let’s say that the job starts a week after graduation and the health insurance that comes with the job starts the day he’s hired. This student’s transition costs would be zero (unless his parents want to charge him for a week’s worth of food and health insurance).
But other students may face costs that add up to many thousands of dollars. There may be travel costs (twice – once for an apartment-hunting trip and once to actually move to the new location), first-and-last-months’ rent and a security deposit on an apartment, furniture for the apartment, a car, and a business wardrobe to pay for. And even if young people line up jobs before graduation, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the job starts immediately after they graduate or that the health insurance that comes with the job starts immediately after that. Often, the job may not start for a month or more after graduation day, and the health plan may not go into effect until the first day of the following month. Somebody has to pay for the kid’s food and health insurance until he has an income with which to pay for it himself.
Some employers will reimburse their new employees for certain relocation expenses, and some lucky new employees will get signing bonuses, but in both cases, the money is generally not available until after the new employee starts work. However, the landlord and the car dealer and the store that’s going to sell your kid a bed aren’t going to wait. So even if your kid is lucky enough to have relocation or bonus money coming, there may be a cash flow problem. (Also, signing bonus money is taxable income. So if your kid gets a $5000 signing bonus, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to get a $5000 check.)
It’s hard to plan for transition costs because it’s unlikely that you’ll know until close to graduation just how extensive your kid’s costs will be. But it’s something to think about. Most parents would not want their kids to have to work at a Starbucks in their hometown rather than taking a career-oriented job in another city, but if the kid can’t afford the transition costs that would be necessary to enable him to take the career-oriented job and the parents can’t or won’t give or lend him the money, that’s what could happen.
My son has always asked for the smallest meal plan he can get at MIT. I don’t know if there’s a lot of free food, if he doesn’t eat breakfast, or what, but I am happy to comply. He can tend to put on weight pretty easily, so it may be his way of weight control!
Good points @Marian! My '11 hs grad starts a job in August. It’ll take 2 trips to new city before move, and it’s far enough away to require an overnight stay, but thankfully not plane tickets. She’ll have all the apt costs you mentioned, and I’m just going to add that, given the outbreaks of bedbugs around the country, and she is moving to a college town, her lease has special provisions regarding the use of rental furniture! Insurance isn’t really a biggie thanks to affordable health care act (just remains on ours). There are also tests to be taken and paid for before work can start. She is broke. No cash flow, and because she’s still well regarded by her boss at an old summer job, she is able to pick up some hours at barely over minimum wage filling in for the the regular summer employees who need a day off here and there.
So, basically, yes, transition costs will be running in the thousands!