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Home > Let's Talk College Costs...Spring Sophomore Year

Let's Talk College Costs...Spring Sophomore Year

May 11th, 2017 at 01:32 pm

Note: I wrote two posts today, scroll down to see the other one.

Get ready, this was the most expensive semester yet! My daughter took 17 credit hours!! Remember she is an out of state student.

$12,746 Tuition and Fees
_$5,063 Room and Board
$17,809 Total Before Scholarships
($7,250) Scholarships
$10,559 Total After Scholarships
__($400) Advance Housing Deposit Paid out of Pocket
($4,750) Paid from ESA
($1,497) Tax Refund (also considered out of pocket)
($3,912) Paid Out of Pocket

I looked back at YNAB, where I now have a College Tuition and Housing Category and we did save all that money from December to February when it was time to pay the bill. Again, I have made the point to pay at least $4K out of pocket each calendar year to take advantage of the American Opportunity Tax Credit. Housing cannot count towards the credit, only eligible tuition and required fees.

This is the semester our daughter just finished. And we have not taken out any loans. The ability to cash flow some of this at times does boggle my mind a bit, but we have pretty low expenses overall thus the extra cash cushion to apply to college. This is key to making it work along with having saved some money in advance. We have also known that we have the Post 911 GI bill for awhile now which has factored into all of the decision making.

Next Up! An online summer class!

Posted in College | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Let's Talk College Costs...Spring Sophomore Year”

  1. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    May 11th, 2017 at 02:29 pm 1494512974
    1494512974

    Out of pocket total I think I did a quick check is $27k so far. I included the ESA withdrawals because you did save it. How much is in your DD2 ESA? Is it more? Do you think you'll end up at around $50k for 4 years? Or less? It's really impressive to pay such a reasonable price for 2 years let alone 4 years.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    May 11th, 2017 at 03:37 pm 1494517051
    1494517051

    Eek! I haven't totaled it yet, but if that includes covering housing that isn't too bad I guess. I'm guessing our out of pocket this next year while using the Post 911 GI Bill will only amount to about $2K to cover the amount due over what they pay for housing. She gets $1000 for books too, so that should also help. I'll have to think through what I think the final amount could be. We need to lower housing by the time she is a senior. And she will have summer classes that currently have no scholarship help. And she will likely go a fifth semester because of the double major.

    Yes, our younger daughter has $$27,375 in her ESA and $2190 in her UTMA. So $29,565 currently. About another $1000 to add in 2017 and another $2000 by her birthday in July 2018. So yes, she will have more saved because we started saving at the same time we started with her sister, so there has been more time to save.

    I will keep setting aside other money next year even though costs are low as we now have that extra semester we will be paying for. I'm also trying to get our daughter to apply for more scholarship money. Just this morning she made a two minute video submission for a possible $10K scholarship. Not saying she will get it, but this summer is a good time to be making an effort!

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