What College Expense Surprised You the Most?

My daughter’s dorm room, in a suite, was about $1000/month. There were 4 sharing the suite. That’s $4000/mo. which is about 3x what a similar sized apartment in the area would cost. For $1000/mo, she could have rented a very large, very nice one bedroom apartment that allowed her to cook. The school suites only allowed a few appliances and all cooking was by microwave.