OP here. Thank you, this has been really useful! My kid will be going to school in DC which is why I asked here. I went to college in a small city that was a 90 minute train ride from a big city, and my parents covered my travel home and all my school-related expenses except books. The idea was that they'd give me a lump sum and I was supposed to shop around for the best deals on books (a major expense 30 years ago) in order to have more leftover for discretionary spending. I had some very tattered textbooks!

So it sounds like with housing, meals, and transportation covered (the fees include an unlimited wmata pass), and with books being mostly online now, $1000-1200 should land right in the middle of "I need to water down my shampoo" and "pizza's on me, everyone!"

I honestly don’t know what my DS spends. He has a meal plan, laundry is included. Whatever he spends comes from his account which is from his summer and weekend jobs. I let him order toiletries on my Amazon account. He found a website that has tons of books so get gets most of his books for classes there.

Less than $1000/semester excluding airfare

I paid for books and trips home. With a meal plan, what do they really need? Pizza and laundry money I guess. Give them a few hundred $$ to start and see where it goes to better predict.

Anonymous wrote:How can a kid spend only 500 per month. Do they never get chipotle or take an uber or go
To cvs for toiletries? Thats how much I spent in college in the early 90’s

How many toiletries can they possibly need? If they need that many, that often, they need a make-under.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can a kid spend only 500 per month. Do they never get chipotle or take an uber or go
To cvs for toiletries? Thats how much I spent in college in the early 90’s

This!

My college was in a major city though, so everyone liked to go out to restaurants, clubs, etc. I was broke with $100/week.

Nobody answers a thread like this except people who want to flex on how little they spend.

Anonymous wrote:How can a kid spend only 500 per month. Do they never get chipotle or take an uber or go
To cvs for toiletries? Thats how much I spent in college in the early 90’s

This!

My college was in a major city though, so everyone liked to go out to restaurants, clubs, etc. I was broke with $100/week.

700~800, but I make most of it myself with an on-campus job

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are on a meal plan and live on campus. We limit them to roughly $1,000 month spend for things like frat dues, meals out, clothing purchases, ubers, etc.

OOF. Meal plan AND $1,000/month?

Thats crazy

Anonymous wrote:After tuition, housing, meal plan, fees... do you have a sense of how much your kid spends per semester?

Mine kid got scholarships that cover the full tuition; I can afford the housing and other ancillary costs. But I don't know what to budget for spending money, or if I even should. I don't want them to work much, especially not freshman year.

I think my folks gave me $1000 per semester, from which I was expected to buy books and pizza and the occasional train ticket to the city/ concert ticket etc; they figured there wouldn't be much left over for booze.

We give ours about 1000 a semester, but that is in addition to books which are rarely expensive and in addition to necessary clothes such as interview suit. They go to a top well endowed school that has cheap arts on or near campus and huge discounts in the community so they do not need a ton and they can work if they want more

Anonymous wrote:My son set a budget of $150/ month to spend. He is responsible for that money; it comes from summer jobs. He spent about that much the first semester, in part because he spent a bit extra at the beginning for things he decided he needed for college, but were extras in my book. Second semester he has spent less, it seems. But, aside from occasionally asking how his budget is going I leave it to him to figure out. We’ve had a few conversations where I try to be helpful, but not controlling or intrusive.

I assume at this level, you son doesn’t go out to bars and drink. That can cost easily $30-50 per night.

Anonymous wrote:Per UMD website, $1200 per year for personal expenses. But IMO a freshman should be able to work a few hours per week.

I also told my kids to save money while in HS from their jobs for personal expenses like going out. I pay for everything school related, books, housing, dining.. they pay for their fun and going out.

1200 for the year. Wow. That is low.

My son set a budget of $150/ month to spend. He is responsible for that money; it comes from summer jobs. He spent about that much the first semester, in part because he spent a bit extra at the beginning for things he decided he needed for college, but were extras in my book. Second semester he has spent less, it seems. But, aside from occasionally asking how his budget is going I leave it to him to figure out. We’ve had a few conversations where I try to be helpful, but not controlling or intrusive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can a kid spend only 500 per month. Do they never get chipotle or take an uber or go
To cvs for toiletries? Thats how much I spent in college in the early 90’s

That’s ridiculous. You don’t need to take an Uber to get toiletries. Order them online. Chipotle is like $12. They aren’t eating at Chipotle every day.

I don’t know how much my kid spends. He spends his money from working. He wasn’t spoiled growing up. He needed to use up a few meal points so he got his first ever Starbucks drink and said it was crap and a waste of money. Meanwhile some students are buying multiple drinks per day there.

+1 DC also has all kinds of meal apps on their phone and gets huge discounts. They also saved money from working in the summer. I have told them to do that since HS.

Anonymous wrote:$1200 per month. Apartment no meal plan. Why be in a big city if you can’t enjoy it?

+1