My parents are paying for everything, including booze, so I wouldn't know :)

I'd like to know the same thing, especially since in this pathetic society my occupation of being smarter than everyone else is going to get me enough money to buy a car to run away from the IRS while I skip out on taxes and buy one meal of peanuts a day from the grocery stores that don't have my face on a wanted poster.

I spent very little money as an undergrad.

Mostly hung out in the Dorms, but when we did go out it, things like dinner and movies where pretty cheap. Things got more expensive when we started going to bars, but that won't be a problem for you for some time.

Honestly, I'd recommend you take as few loans as possible, even if it means going to Community College for 2 years. Quite frankly, no school is worth $80k in loans, imho. Just understand that if you take out that much money, you'll be going straight to work after school. No grad school, no time off. Plus, most of your disposable income will then go towards paying back loans, not on fun stuff.

I can't really go to a community college for 2 years. I already am going to get a ton of AP credit, which will cover most of the classes at a community college. Plus I really just want to be on my own after high school.
"understand that if you take out that much money, you'll be going straight to work after school." I was planning on that. You mean to say most people (who don't go to grad school) don't usually do that?

Agreed, no undergrad school is worth 80K. As long as you keep good grades, actively seek out internships, and network while in school it really doesn't matter where you go, you will be successful.

Are you living in a dorm, or apartment?

Do you have a meal plan with your room and board?

CM... assuming that your school related expenses are covered, you can get away with probably around $800.00 a month if you don't mind being poor.

This should cover food and housing (midwest cheap, other places more money) and enough money for the occasional 12 pack of natty ice. Enjoy!

"Are you living in a dorm, or apartment?" Neither. as I said I still have two years until college lol. But to answer your question, I'm planning on living in a dorm, and I should have a meal plan. At UCLA (which is where I was looking) their tuition plus room and board is typically around 31000. According to their financial aid calculator, I should get about 15000-18000 in aid per year.

Agreed, too much money for a bachelors. This is more of a personal finance question than a college question. Debt sucks, and you should not accept that student loans are inevitabe. There are ways to do it without loans.

Two books I would suggest for you that could change your future:
Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Make Over" and a new book written by a ~24 year old about how he went to school debt free. "Debt Free U" by Zac Bisonnette

Well, when I lived in a dorm, I did it pretty cheap. I very rarely bought food that wasn't in my meal plan, and in a college atmosphere, there isn't a scarcity of fun things to do that are free.

I paid for the occassional dinner out, gas, and thats about it. I'd say only about $50 a month. Pretty much one or two dinners out, and some gas in the car. I mean, if I had more money, I might have done different things, but you can certainly have lots of fun for super cheap in college.

And once you get a job (even minimum wage) you will be able to cover non-room and board expenses very easily.

In short, I wouldn't worry about it. Your biggest expense really is going to be your cell phone bill.

Tom+1

@CM

You should start seriously applying to every scholarship you can.

Also, I don't care how many AP courses you're taking, it ,at still be worth it to go to CC for a year.

Learn how to cook some easy dishes that you love. At a certain point you'll want to not eat dorm food, and if you can cook, your life will be a lot cheaper. It's a life long skill also.

Also, it impresses people you go on dates with (though I almost never went on real dates in college, it was drinking then hooking up often enough then you were dating.)

"Learn how to cook some easy dishes that you love. At a certain point you'll want to not eat dorm food, and if you can cook, your life will be a lot cheaper. It's a life long skill also."

Truth.

Eggs are easy and real cheap. Pasta is super easy and relatively cheap. So even when you want to get away from dorm food (if that is where you end up), you can either make food for yourself, or rather than always taking a date out, you just make something for them (chicks dig guys who cook for them)

But lets not make another CM thread about girls and dating here....

So back on topic: Sure, there will be times where you will get fastfood, but you can always make food cheaper. Say its 10pm and you are hungry but the cafeteria is closed. Instead of making a trip to Taco Bell, just scramble up some eggs with cheese. Super cheap.

These are totally subjective questions. What other people spent or found tolerable or enjoyable has nothing to do with you. You should figure out what you think you will spend money on (you already listed some items) and make a budget for yourself. Also factor in whether you plan to work during school. One guy might tell you it costs $10 a month and another might tell you $1000 a month. You're the only one who knows what your "reasonable college lifestyle" is -- although you may need to scale it back once you actually work the numbers.

Similarly, amount of okay indebtedness is subjective too. You need to consider whether you will be working right after you graduate, and how much you think you reasonably might make vs the loan repayment schedule. Or will you go to grad school? Some public interest jobs have loan repayment deferral or loan forgiveness incentives.

Personally, I disagree with the advice to go to community college. If you can get into UCLA, I'd do that (or similar) rather than a CC, even if it means more debt. Depending on your field, where you went to college may be a major factor in your initial employability. For some fields and some employers, doors will be closed to you if you go to a CC. For that matter, doors will be closed to you even if you go to UCLA, but that's life.

@Hanged

The point is he'd go to CC for 2 years for all his general studies and then transfer to UCLA to save a bunch of money.

Tom +1

Chicks dig guys who can cook and even moreso those who can bake (most girls I know have huge sweet teeth)

It depends on a lot of things though, CM. I'm in DC and for my internship I had to take the Metro every day. That's easily four or five bucks a day, every day. Then if you want to go anywhere you either need a friend who has a car. take a taxi, or public transportation. Most frats and clubs require you to pay a cover (sexist bastards) unless its a special night (open rush for frats, specials nights at clubs). If you get a girlfriend(s) she will cost a bit.

Honestly, if you are the kind of person who is frugal, you won't spend much in college. If you spend a lot now, you'll spend a lot in college. I probably spend $400 a semester or so since I had a full meal plan and places on campus were open until midnight.

But books are another thing. If you shop at the school store, expect $600 a semester, again, depending on what major you are. If you're smarter, use Amazon or other websites to get them used and for much much cheaper. I resell them using bookscouter.com to get the best price for them at the end of the semester. So net, I probably spend $300 on books a semester (around $70 a book)

As people have said though, apply for lots of scholarships. That financial aid that you calculated may come in the form of loans, which still ends you up in the hole. If you're as smart as you say you are, schools will offer you money.

@abge - I disagree on CC. I'm friends with a bunch of transfer students from CC and they all got shafted because my school wouldn't take the credits. They ended up all doing 3 years here instead of 2, so in the end it works out about the same cost-wise. In fact, if you account for a year's worth of lost wages, its better just to go to the 4 year school. Plus, there's the quality and quantity of contacts made. Yeah its nice to be friends with some branch managers of a bank, or mid-level office people at a company, but if you go to an elite 4 year school and end up being friends with a future VP of GE then I'd say that contact was better than all the other ones you could have had combined.

I also think it's a gamble passing on admission to UCLA in favor of Long Beach CC (or wherever) with the plan to transfer. Lots of people would like to transfer, most of them don't succeed.

It is much easier to transfer to a good school than be accepted outright. If your friends didn't have their credits accepted, that's really more of an issue with them not doing the proper research.

I'm not saying he *has* to go to CC, I'm just saying it's an option if he wants to avoid close to 100k in debt.

Pro tip - learn the mass transit in the area where you're attending college. Cars are hella expensive and that's even if you don't drive them in lakes.

CM, for some reason I thought you were from Canada.
At any rate, going to a Canadian university - even as an international student - will probably be cheaper than UCLA so, if money is an issue, I would suggest looking into it.

This question is impossible to answer without knowing what the cheap student beer and well vodka prices are in California.

CM, let me give you a few actual *helpful* tips. Don't go to CC (you're not anyway). If you're as hard up as you make yourself out to be, you'll get the college's financial aid package, probably what you estimate, which will likely include work study. Work study will be your spending money. Keep in mind that the college's financial aid won't be ALL student loans, especially if your family makes below a certain level of income, in which case you'll receive Pell grants. For textbooks, you can torrent the ebook version OR try and find it in the school library. I haven't paid for textbooks for the past two semesters of grad school once I figured out that trick. Also, yellowjacket's estimate of $800 a month is a bit high for a freshman who plans to live on campus. There are always lots of free entertainment options on campus for undergrads, plus cable and internet are dirt cheap, so you'll likely never come anywhere near spending $200 per week.

The international versions of textbooks are usually significantly cheaper and are often identical content-wise.

Alternatively, make friends who took the class last semester and just borrow their book.

Just don't be one of those kids who is constantly asking to borrow other classmate's books. Also, a friend and I would always split the cost of books, which helped a lot.

Oh, and I somehow forgot to mention the biggest problem with taking out so many loans: you won't be able to save any money after college. All of your money will be going to repaying loans, not saving for a car, or house, or whatever. Thats a serious problem now for all my friends who took out loans to go to private schools.

"If you're as hard up as you make yourself out to be, you'll get the college's financial aid package"

Unless things have changed in education financing rules since the mid 80s, he won't. He said his parent's weren't paying, not that they couldn't afford to pay. If they make too much, he will have a hard time getting loans, much less grants. The feds don't give a fuck that your payin for school yourself. Parent income is what matters. Trust me, I paid my own way through and had a tough time of it because my dad made almost six figures as an engineer, but he didn't believe in paying for his kids education.

Do they still require freshmen to live in the dorms like they did in the 80s? IF so, you are stuck there, but if not, find 3 friends going to school in the same area (or working) and split a two bedroom apartment. Can't speak for CA, but that gets your rent in Ohio down around 200-250 per month.

Oh god how could I forget textbooks.

Look up the required list and check on Amazon, for Christ's sake. I had an economics textbook this semester that went from $200 at the bookstore to $40 online. I couldn't speak for international versions of texts because I've only ever bothered to try Amazon, but even if you don't go any further than Amazon, in (presumably) four years of textbook purchases, you may literally save enough money to get a used car. Not that you should go buy one with the saved money, per se, but college bookstores are quite possibly the biggest single scam I've faced so far in undergrad.

Draug: most colleges try to make you stay in the dorms, but I was able to evade that pretty easily (though I was a bit older when I started).

@Eden

I've bought all my international copies from Amazon : )

Of course you did. lol

I just graduated, so a couple thoughts. I don't have a ton of experience with loans, but I worked in academic advising while I was a student and I have a job now that involves thinking about money a lot.

- If you're going to be required to live in a dorm (at least for your freshmen year) and your fixed expenses will include a meal plan or something like that, you probably don't need to worry much about food. If you don't have extravagant tastes, $40-60/week is enough for the occasional meal/movie/booze on a budget every week, but obviously not enough to eat out every night or spend a ton partying/traveling/whatever on the weekends. You can definitely get away with less depending on how frugal you are and where you're living. How much entertainment costs is pretty tough to determine, since it's largely about what you want.

- Get an apartment with a few roommates as soon as you can and learn how to cook, at least a few dishes well, like others have said. At some point, take a Sunday to make a trip to the grocery store and figure out what a reasonable week's worth of groceries will cost in the area you're going to live. Where I went to school, I could buy groceries for a week on $40 or less if I wasn't spoiling myself with the best cuts of meat or anything; but where I'm living now, $40 is clearly a floor, not a ceiling. Food prices vary a lot by city. But rent and groceries will almost certainly be substantially less than food and lodging on-campus if you have a few roommates.

- Check and see if the student loans you're likely to get, or the income you'd like to or expect to have (or worry about having) after graduating, would qualify you for for Income-Based Repayment. Even if you end having to borrow a ton, this can prevent you from being in a situation where you're stuck with loan payments that eat up all of your money. Here's a wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income-Based_Repayment I'm not American so sadly I don't know much more.

- Don't expect to get carried away with partying, or at least, plan to party on the cheap. Booze can soak up cash really quickly.

- Be sure to work in transportation costs, like others have said.

- Feel free to investigate, er, non-traditional ways of acquiring textbooks.

- Have you factored in money from summer jobs?

- I would definitely advise going to a UC or somewhere similar, instead of a CC. It`s tough to find work without a degree and it can be complicated to transfer. But $80k is a lot of debt -- if you can find a way to get that down at all by working and budgeting, you'll be a lot happier when you graduate.

Money is an important factor, Conservative Man (it really wasn't an issue for me in undergrad, but it will be in a ruinous way if for law school if I don't keep myself focused), but at the same time you need to be sure that you experience college life to the fullest. It's the time of your life to develop your social skills to the best they can be, and do so with next to no risk. Unlike high school, you can talk to a girl and if she turns you down you can literally never see her again if you want to. You can make a fool of yourself trying out for a play or at the open mic night and likewise never see those people again. Money's a big deal and for big things like tuition and books you should make your dollars count, but for small and even medium sized fun things (like throwing a kegger once you have an apartment and road trips to footballs games that are way too far away), I say go for it. I don't regret the things I did in college, only the things I didn't do.