Do you compare college cost based on billable or non-billable?
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Anonymous
| I noticed there is a big difference in non-billable (like travel, personal expense). Do you add everything to compare or only the billable (like tuition, room and board and fees)? |
Anonymous
Both, I'm not sure how one could appropriately plan and budget responsibly without doing so. |
Anonymous
| We will factor in both but the travel will be the least of it frankly (and we’re West coast based with a student who wants East coast schools). |
Anonymous
| Thank you. I was comparing in-state which has few non-billable items listed and private with only books (in addition to the tuition, fee and room and board). The problem is with the in-state college still we have not received financial package due to FAFSA delay. |
Anonymous
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Yes, we add up everything, but we adjust the indirect costs.
Travel varies by distance from school, so I don't know how the generic cost is even helpful. It's fairly easy to estimate 3-6 roundtrip plane tickets or to eliminate that cost if the school is a short drive. Personal expenses - my kid tracks her own spending, and knows we won't be paying this, so she knows what this is. (More than what the school estimates). We don't factor it into our own budget, because she will take care of it. Books - we use the college estimate |
Anonymous
| We compared only tuition - fees - on campus room & board. If a school required air transportation, came up with our own calculation of what that would add. |
Anonymous
| WTF? |
Anonymous
If you look past the lawyer/consultant terminology, I’m sure you can figure out what OP is asking. |
Anonymous
b We just compare Tuition and Fees minus any merit aid. The rest of it (Room, board, books, etc.) will end up around 20K (or close) for the most part. Adjust according to special circumstances (e.g. A California would cost much more for the second bucket for a DC area family). Keeps things simple. |
Anonymous
It's still a bad question. Your bank account doesn't care what detail the money is paying for. |
Anonymous
| We only compare tuition + room and board. The other is too variable. |
Anonymous
no. im a lawyer and found it weird too |
Anonymous
and no lawyer would use such terms! gotta be wife of a lawyer who thinks she is clever but doesnt have a clue |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Only if you're nickel and diming, which doesn't make sense unless you're on huge amounts of financial aid, or getting the major costs paid for by someone else.
Having considered European and Canadian universities, in addition to US ones, the travel and incidental expenses DO NOT COME CLOSE to making a difference to what is already exorbitant tuition, room and board (or what's considered "total cost of attendance"). My son's US university, sticker price, is 85K a year (he got 20K merit aid). St Andrews in Scotland would have been 65K a year. McGill would have been 30K a year (Canadian tuition). UMD would have been 30K a year (in-state). He chose the private US uni. All the travel in the world won't make up for that difference, unless I also rent an apartment in Montreal 
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