College Costs No One Warns Parents About

Everyone expects college to be insanely expensive. It’s what we parents worry about for basically our kids’ entire childhoods.

Once we figure out how we’re going to pay for the tuition, we think we’ve mostly tackled it. We know we have to pay for a meal plan, room and board, and textbooks.

What I wasn’t prepared for were the smaller expenses that end up catching us off guard.

These can add up fast! The $40 lab fee you didn’t know about, the $120 online access code your student needs for one class. Then there’s the last-minute flight home that costs about twice what you expected.

None of these expenses seem budget-breaking on their own, but over the course of a semester, they can become a significant expense that you didn’t plan for.

While it’s impossible to anticipate every expense your student will have, you can prepare yourself for most of them…and hopefully budget so they won’t break the bank! Let’s look at the college costs parents often forget to budget for and come up with a plan to manage these expenses so it feels slightly less painful when they come up!

Academic Costs Tuition Doesn’t Cover

I think we expect our student’s living expenses to be higher (astronomical?) as they adjust to life away from home. After all, they’ve never had to manage so many of the day-to-day expenses on their own before.

I’ve personally known many college students who spent like their bank account had unlimited funds until they had either 1.) a look at their bank balance, or 2.) a hard conversation with their parents that reminded them that their money did, in fact, have a limit.

What most parents don’t expect are the actual academic costs required to attend classes that their student’s tuition didn’t cover.

Textbooks are the obvious one. No matter how prepared you think you are, these required books will give any parent sticker shock.

Luckily these can usually be purchased used and then sold at the end of the semester to recoup some of the cost.

Homework access codes can come with a steep price tag, but unlike textbooks, these can’t be bought used or resold.

Depending on the type of class your student is taking, there may be lab fees, art or studio supplies, or specific calculators or required software or other course-specific materials.

Some science courses will require lab coats, goggles, and other lab supplies.

My best tip to navigate these costs (and avoid spending more than you need to) is to wait to purchase anything until your student gets the course syllabus the first week of class.

They may find out that a book is optional, or that they can rent or buy some of their supplies used to save a little money.

Campus Fees Buried in the Bill

Another place college costs can sneak up on you is in the seemingly endless list of fees added to your student’s bill.

There may be student activity fees, technology fees, health center fees.

The list goes on and on.

Some of these fees are required whether your student actually uses the service or not. This can feel frustrating when you’re already paying thousands of dollars for tuition.

If your student is bringing a car to campus, make sure you check the cost of a parking permit ahead of time.

Depending on the school, parking can be surprisingly expensive and is an easy expense to forget when you’re putting together your college budget.

There may also be orientation fees, charges to replace a lost student ID, and fees for adding or dropping a class after certain deadlines.

Pay close attention to due dates. A late fee is one of the most frustrating college expenses because it’s also one of the easiest to avoid.

My best advice is to read the itemized statement line by line, not just the total. Know exactly what you’re paying for so you can catch any fees you weren’t expecting, and possibly dispute any errors.

Everyday Living the Meal Plan Doesn’t Cover

If you’re paying for a college meal plan, it’s easy to assume you’ve pretty much covered your student’s food for the semester.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

Depending on the school and the meal plan you choose, there may be times when the dining hall is closed or your student’s schedule simply doesn’t line up with dining hours.

There’s also weekends, late night study sessions, and breaks when your student will need to find and pay for food on their own.

Realistically, even with the best meal plan, most college students are still going to want snacks, drinks, and some spontaneous food purchases.

A small grocery run here and there may not seem like much, but it’s another expense to work into the budget.

Food delivery can be another major drain on your budget, especially when ordering dinner starts to become a habit instead of an occasional treat.

This is actually one of the most common money mistakes people make, and this is a great opportunity to talk to your college student about how lifestyle choices like these can really impact their bottom line…in college and into their adult lives.

These expenses aren’t necessarily huge, but they’re going to occur month after month which makes them easy to underestimate when you’re planning your student’s budget.

I want to stop here and say to all parents reading this: We all know how hard it is to stick to a budget. Try to be realistic with your college student and give them some wiggle room in this category if you’re able to.

We want them to feel like they can say yes to a social invite without feeling guilty about the expense. As long as it isn’t getting out of control, allowing them some financial room for conveniences and familiar comforts they had at home will make the transition to college life easier.

Travel and Getting Home

If your student is going to college away from home, don’t forget to work the cost of getting them back home into your budget.

Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break can mean several trips home every school year.

If your student is flying, those trips can get expensive quickly…especially when they’re traveling during the same holiday weeks as thousands (millions?) of other people.

Even if they’re close enough to drive, gas and tolls can still make each trip home more expensive than you might expect.

Remember that the plane ticket itself may not be the only expense.

Your son or daughter might need to pay for a rideshare or shuttle to and from the airport, baggage fees, and airport parking.

Another expense that is easy to overlook is the cost of storage.

If your child lives too far away to bring an entire dorm room’s worth of belongings home for the summer, you may need to budget for a storage unit until they return in the fall.

If you’re like me, this is the one budget category that you won’t mind spending a little extra on.

After all, what parent doesn’t hope their college student comes home to visit as often as possible?

Social Life and Memberships

College is about getting an education, but we also want our kids to make friends, get involved, and actually enjoy these years of their lives.

Unfortunately, a lot of those college experiences come with a price tag.

If your student joins a fraternity or sorority, there may be dues along with other expenses throughout the year.

Club fees, intramural fees, and other campus organizations may have membership fees as well that you should factor in.

The social expenses of a college student can be nearly impossible to predict.

Formals, game tickets, birthday dinners, and eventually the possibility of a spring break trip with friends can all add up.

This is another area where talking about expenses ahead of time can help. Work together to come up with a realistic “fun” budget and be honest that when that fund is gone, there isn’t much wiggle room for more.

We want our kids to have fun, but it doesn’t have to mean saying yes to every single event. I consider learning to decide what’s worth spending money on (and when to say no) to be a valuable life skill that they’ll carry with them long after college.

Health and Insurance Costs

One thing I would check before your student even starts school is how their college handles health insurance.

Some schools auto-enroll student in campus health insurance unless you submit a waiver by a deadline.

So many parents I’ve spoken with were completely caught off guard by this.

If your student is already covered under your health insurance, you may be able to waive the school’s plan.

Pay very close attention to this deadline. Put it in your phone, sticky notes all over your house. I’m only half joking.

Schools that allow waivers typically require you to submit one by a specific date and are less than lenient if you miss it.

Other healthcare costs to plan for are co-pays, prescriptions, glasses or contacts, and potential urgent care visits.

Hopefully your child won’t need much of the money you budget for this category, but I’d much rather budget for it and not need it than be caught off guard when they do.

The Once-in-a-While Surprises

Even the best college budget can’t account for everything.

Laptops break, phones get dropped, and sometimes an expensive replacement is needed at the absolute worst time.

There are also costs associated with moving in and moving out of the dorms every year.

Between moving supplies, transportation, storage, and possibly even a hotel stay…getting your student and all of their belongings to and from college can become a much bigger expense than you’d think.

You can’t predict when all of these things will happen, but you can leave a little room in the budget for when they inevitably do.

How to Plan for the Costs You Can’t Predict

One of the easiest ways to plan for these unexpected costs is to build a little extra money into your budget at the beginning of each semester.

Not per school year. Per semester.

Think of it as a buffer fund for all of those unexpected expenses that will inevitably pop up throughout the semester.

I also recommend deciding ahead of time which expenses you’ll cover and which ones your student will be resposnbile for.

A friend of mine pays for her child’s meal plan but won’t pay for any restaurant meals. Those are on her child to afford.

We give our kids a small amount of “fun food” money and anything beyond that, they’re responsible for.

Write these kinds of thing down with your student when they first go off to college, and then tweak it together after every semester when you know exactly where all of the money was spent!

Final Thoughts

You’ll probably never be able to predict every single expense that comes with sending your kid to college and that’s okay.

They will underspend in some categories and over spend in others.

The goal isn’t to account for every dollar before the semester even begins. It’s to know which expenses are likely to come up and to leave some room for the ones you can’t predict.

Make sure you’re on the same page as your student about the budget.

There will be surprises along the way, but hopefully they won’t feel quite so overwhelming when you’ve planned for some of them.

While you’re helping your student prepare financially for college, be sure to check out these common money mistakes an how they can avoid them!

Most importantly, give yourself and your student some grace. You’re both figuring out how to navigate this new season of life together. Do everything you can to make this an exciting time for your student instead of a stressful one. Your relationship with your child will be all the better for it, I promise!