College costs how much?!

Tuition and fees are about the only financial certainties when it comes to sending the kids off to college. Parents learn quickly that associated costs can be much higher than expected.

By HELEN HUNTLEY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 5, 2001

While Aaron, Joshua and Benjamin Gary have been earning their college degrees, their parents have gotten an education of another sort -- in paying the bills.

"You learn from each one, and they learn from your experience,"joked their dad, Lyle Gary, who edits a Clearwater-based trade magazine. "That's why it pays to have multiple children."

One thing it didn't take the Gary family long to learn is that the actual cost of a college education can be much higher than the numbers colleges publish in their catalogs and on the Internet.

As a new crop of freshmen head off to campus in the coming weeks, the cost of everything from cappuccino to housing is likely to bring a new wave of sticker shock to their parents.

In fact, tuition and fees are about the only certainties. Everything else is just an estimate, and sometimes the projected bottom line isn't close to reality. That's especially true in Florida, where tuition and fees for in-state students at public universities are only about 20 percent of the total expense, even by the universities' own calculations. The rest of the $10,000 to $12,000 annual price tag is mostly living expenses, which vary widely from one student to the next.

The official budgets provided by universities are based on federal financial aid guidelines. These require that the expenses used to determine need be "modest but adequate." The numbers play a major role in determining how much a student will be eligible to receive in scholarships and subsidized loans.

But what is adequate?

"We're trying to be realistic, but we still have students who complain that the cost of attendance we use is too low," said Leonard Gude, director of financial aid at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Gude said some universities with high tuition costs deliberately keep their other numbers low so the total package appears less expensive, a marketing advantage. It also makes it easier for them to say they give out enough financial aid to meet students' full needs, he said.

Even among state institutions, the numbers reflect differences in the assumptions universities make about their students.

At the University of Florida, for example, the estimated cost of $11,280 assumes $810 a year in computer-related expenses because students are required to have access to computers and the Internet and some classes require special software.

But there is no money to insure and maintain a car. While USF budgets $1,100 for transportation expenses, UF allocates just $310. UF financial aid director Karen Fooks said the number is based on round-trip mileage to Miami for a trip home at the end of each semester. (It's up to the students to figure out how to get there.) When students are in Gainesville, the assumption is that they will ride the bus for free.

But Joshua Gary, 23, a UF graduate student, pays $305 a month for his new Volkswagen and another $200 a month to insure it -- a whopping $4,545 over the nine-month academic year, not counting maintenance and gasoline. And he's hardly alone. More than 19,000 of UF's 46,000 students buy parking decals each year, jokingly referred to as "hunting licenses" because spaces are so scarce. The resulting parking tickets cost $20 a pop. Thousands of others have cars but leave them off campus and never buy a decal.

Joshua works as a claims adjuster while going to school and pays for his own car now. But while he was an undergraduate, he drove a GMC Sonoma pickup leased by his dad. Lyle Gary said the truck was a great investment.

"After four years, that truck would almost stop by itself whenever it passed an article of furniture discarded by the curb," Lyle said. This technique furnished many an apartment. Joshua said he also earned free meals and other favors using the truck to help friends move.

Lyle Gary said he considers student vehicles a necessity because he expected each of his sons to get a job after the first year of college to help pay expenses. A side benefit is that a car makes it easier for them to come home and visit mom and dad, who live in New Port Richey.

Benjamin Gary, 19, works part time for Sprint while taking business classes at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He buys the gas for his 1999 Chevy Cavalier. He and his parents share other costs.

"I think I had it a little bit easier in that I was the first to go away to school," said older brother, Aaron Gary, 30, who graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo and now works as a software consultant for People magazine. "The first couple years, when I needed money, I would just call home."

But by the time he was a senior, he was working two jobs -- as an clerical worker by day and a supermarket butcher by night.

"My first couple years when my father was giving me money, I wasn't so thrifty," Aaron confessed. "But when I was working, I became very thrifty. I bought the used textbooks. I lived in a 10-person house my senior year. I had a car but I barely drove it. I used public transportation so i didn't have to spend so much money on gas."

Aaron and Joshua both tried out the meal plans their freshman years, but their dad decided it was a waste of money.

"It was an unnecessary extravagance and they didn't even care for it," Lyle Gary said.

UF estimates that students can eat for about $240 a month, fairly close to what Benjamin Gary said he spends for a mostly fast-food diet. Some students spend considerably more, eating at nicer restaurants, while others pride themselves on their ability to get by on a lot less.

Tim Ward, 20, said he ate for $60 a month during his first two years at UF, although now that he has gotten engaged he has improved his diet. "I ate a lot of Ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, Totinos frozen pizzas, corned beef hash, soups and some bread to stretch it out."

Ward said his mother, who is retired and lives in Orlando, is not able to help him and he depends on financial aid, including a $6-an-hour work-study job in a campus computer lab. By scrimping on food, he said he comes up with enough money to keep his 1989 Jetta running.

Housing costs also can vary dramatically. A double room in a dorm at UF costs as much as $1,837 a semester or as little as $831, if you are willing to live without air conditioning. Housing officials say many students looking to save a few dollars request the non-air-conditioned dorms, which are among the oldest buildings on campus.

Off-campus accommodations range from shared rooms in dingy apartments to private bedrooms and bathrooms in luxury complexes with swimming pools, weight rooms and high-speed Internet access.

Those who live off campus get introduced to the realities of electric bills and leases that make them responsible for the full rent year-round even if they leave town for the summer and even if a roommate moves out.

"Sometimes they had expected somebody to share the rent and that person doesn't come to school, drops out, moves in with a boyfriend, and the student is suddenly stuck with twice as much rent as anticipated," Fooks said.

But probably no category of student expenditure causes more grief than that catch-all "miscellaneous," which covers everything from concert tickets to phone bills racked up while sustaining a long-distance relationship.

Students face lots of financial temptations, said St. Petersburg physician David Baras, whose daughter, Jacqueline, just finished her freshman year at Columbia University, which carries a price tag of $27,143 a year in tuition and fees and $8,280 for room and board on campus. Beyond that, the official numbers presume $1,860 will cover books, transportation and all the miscellaneous expenses of life in New York City.

"We want her to use whatever free activities are on campus, and we encourage her to go to things where students get a reduced rate," he said. "But kids want to go out and they're in New York City. If you go out, you're spending $20 or $30 or more."

Movie tickets are $7.50 to $8, and tea sells for $6 to $7 a glass at a popular gourmet tea shop near campus, Baras said. He knows the costs because he and his wife, Mary Jo, each made two trips to New York to visit their daughter last year, another expense many parents forget to include when calculating college costs.

"Once we're there, she expects us to take her out," he said.

Jacqueline, an English major who wants to go into medicine, is working as a restaurant hostess this summer to earn some of her spending money for next year.

Peer pressure can be tough on students who are trying to live frugally, Fooks said. That is a particular issue at expensive private colleges and at some state universities such as UF that attract wealthy families who view it as an educational bargain.

"Many of our students come from an upper-income population and they're used to a fairly upscale lifestyle," Fooks said. "There's a little bit of pressure on students from family incomes that are not quite as good to be able to hang out with their friends and do the same things their friends do. You can't buy the stereo systems and $70 jeans on our budget."

Some students finance their spending with credit cards, which are heavily marketed on and near campus. No parental signature is required and many parents are in the dark about how much their college-age children owe.

"I had eight credit cards my first year here," Joshua Gary said. He said he racked up more than $10,000 in debt but has managed to pay off nearly all of it, partly with proceeds from low-interest student loans.

"I would think, "If I put $1,000 on this card, I can pay for it over two years and it will only be $10 a month, " he said. "Before you know it, you owe on every card. It was a very good learning experience."

Kerry Eloshway, who will be a junior at the University of South Florida in Tampa this fall, said she got her first credit card when she was attending St. Petersburg College and trying to support herself on a job that paid $5 an hour.

"It wasn't like I was blowing everything," she said. "It was just that things happen in life." Eloshway, 24, said she owed as much as $12,000 on her cards but has whittled her debt down to less than $8,000 by paying $400 to $800 a month.

Her boyfriend, Bryan Marks, who graduated from USF two years ago, said many of his college-age friends don't think about the consequences when they whip out their credit cards.

"If you're working at Chili's two days a week and making $150, but every weekend you're spending $300, you've just got to think about what you're doing," he said. "You can't just think of now; you have to think ahead."

Baras, the doctor whose daughter is at Columbia, said he thinks it is important for parents to discuss expenses with their children before they head off to college.

"They need to know what money is available," he said. He also tracks his daughter's spending when he pays her credit card bills.

Financial aid officers acknowledge college is expensive but say parents need to put the cost in perspective.

"People panic if you quote them $13,000," said Mary McKinney, executive director of student financial assistance at UCF in Orlando. "But deduct the tuition and if you don't go to school, it's still going to cost you that amount to live."

Few parents save the full cost of college ahead of time. Most rely on a combination of savings, current income, student income and financial aid to pay the bills. One added bonus: The family electric and water bills usually go down when the college student is no longer living at home.

"The cost is nothing to panic about, but it is something to be concerned about," McKinney said. "If a student really wants to go to college, they can."

- Helen Huntley can be reached at huntley@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8230.

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