College planning—this year’s version of what we’ve learned

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I’m the sort of person who mulls over mistakes, but it’s mostly to do better next time, or advise other people in a better way. There’s no point in it if it’s just to beat yourself up for something you can no longer fix. In all financial planning, you have to go forward from where you are. However, dear daughter is now a junior, and there’s nothing like continuing first-hand experience.

  1. Order it online. I strongly urge you not to buy a lot of stuff for the dorm room for your child’s first year. Dorm rooms can be shockingly small (maybe smaller than your master bath). Once you see it, you’ll be able to drive to the local Target or Bed, Bath, and Beyond and purchase identical items to what every other parent/child team is purchasing at the same time (wait until you see the lines during move-in week!) However, if you thought the dorm room purchases were then over, well, ha! Ha! Chances are your little darling will discover new stuff he or she needs every year. Do your looking at home, then order online and have it sent. The benefits? You get to curb what your kid is buying, they may deliver it for free (instead of you paying to send it), and in the case of Target they also give you 5% off—and another 5% if you wait for a one-day pharmacy rewards discount pass. Not a plug for Target, it’s just a card we have.
    Yes, I hate paying shipping. Particularly since it’s been 4 times a year—back to school, home for the month at winter break, back after winter break, home again for the summer. Oh wait, there’s that other season: the-stuff-I-forgot-on-the-first-shipment. Then there’s the care package season, the mom-misses-you season, the can’t-find-this-nearby season…
  2. The job on campus is sometimes better than any at home. Dear daughter has had more responsibility and learned more skills with her on-campus jobs than the few crappy jobs she’s landed during the summer. Don’t bank on the summer job—at least for DD, they’ve been really hard to land. And be sure your child looks hard for some good jobs on campus where they might actually learn something.
  3. Think carefully about choosing a school far from where you live. Although DD’s school has been perfect for her in many ways, we both wish she was in driving distance. I’ve blogged before about the cost of transportation and shipping, so I won’t hammer that again. However, even a prominent school’s best network may be in a fairly close radius to campus. Resources for internships, summer jobs, etc. may be best nearby. If your child wants to stay on either coast, that’s fine, but if she wants to return to the Midwest, not so much.
  4. Find a doctor near the school, but make sure they’re in your provider network. The farther away, the less likely your current doctor really knows anyone. Student health services can handle a lot (although they generally won’t bill insurance—have fun) but some events require real medical consultation. I hope you will never confront this, but be sure you understand the benefits available if your child needs emergency treatment or has any sort of psychological crisis. Mental health reimbursement varies greatly.
  5. If your child has the option of taking classes among several different schools, find out how they’ll get there. It’s a trend lately for nearby schools to form consortiums which allows schools to tout 5,000 classes available through our consortium. Okay, this is dumb but be sure to ask what transportation is available. Is there a dedicated van? How often does it run? How long a trip? (really affects scheduling of other classes) How can the student meet with the prof on another campus (particularly those who are, ahem! somewhat cavalier about office hours). If there’s no van and it’s a lab class, it might meet 4 times a week x $8 for the train and it can really add up over a semester.
  6. What will the school do if the student needs a class that’s not offered at the school? Now we know that every single child knows exactly what they will major in and want to do in life at the point where they enter college. And they’ll never, ever change their minds or develop other interests, right? Okay, I have the only one. But let’s say your child discovers that they want to go into a medical field after choosing the school based on the archaeology department. Will the school help your child find an Anatomy Lab? Any extra cost on that one? If you have to pay thousands for them to snag the class over the summer at another school, well, you’re not going to get any financial aid for that one.
    This requires some pretty close scrutiny if it happens. After all, the child who has to take a summer class isn’t going to be earning money, she’s going to be costing more. It’s probably only going to result in “extra credits”, not a reduction in tuition at the primary school. If the primary school arranges the class at a nearby school, check to find out if the academic calendars mesh—we had already booked the return-to-campus flight when we found out the other school started a week earlier.
  7. Make sure your child checks into what other people are giving away. You absolutely cannot believe what kids throw out. DD’s school has a “free box” system at every dorm. I think a kid could make a business selling on eBay what they can scrounge from these boxes. Some of DD’s major finds: bags of unopened pistachios, a new pair of Ugg boots, countless t-shirts and tops, and a $300 pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones that were still under warranty and which Bose replaced for $97. (Then again, there was the container of Jello shots.) If your child’s school doesn’t have a free box, encourage them to suggest starting one. If you have some means to store the stuff, check out what’s dumped the week before graduation—refrigerators, coffee makers, bookshelves. I’d have a heart attack if I were the parent that paid for this stuff.

We’ve got one more year after this one. I can’t wait to see more surprise costs—I bet they’re still out there.

Posted in Cash flow & Spending, College Planning.

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