How accurate are the cost of attendance estimations?

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For those of you in medical school, has getting loans for the amount of cost of attendance at your schools been able to suffice when it comes to being able to live on a day to day basis? I'm looking at some of these numbers on the MSAR and it seems as if some of them are a little low once you subtract tuition.

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Our COA was always hopelessly too low, by thousands of dollars. They cannot by definition include car expenses; most of us had to have a car for clinical work. They did not include professional clothes; another significant expense. They might include a required computer, but never ongoing costs for software and maintenance. And so on. The COA is really a bare minimum and not particularly realistic.
 
Our COA was always hopelessly too low, by thousands of dollars. They cannot by definition include car expenses; most of us had to have a car for clinical work. They did not include professional clothes; another significant expense. They might include a required computer, but never ongoing costs for software and maintenance. And so on. The COA is really a bare minimum and not particularly realistic.


Here's ours this year:
Rent: 650 (that's enough for a 1bd here)
Food: 400 (should probably be enough, especially if you eat mostly at home)
Utilities: 150 (we have long, cold winters so this is borderline in winter)
Phone/Internet: 95
Transportation: 120
Personal: 200
Total: 1615

This is probably enough for one person, but if you have a car payment, actually want to put gas in your car, need some new clothes, this can be a little meager at times. As well, by law federal loans are only allowed to cover expenses during the school year; so if school is 9 months, you have 3 months left to cover. Look for as many ways as possible to reduce your monthly expenses, e.g. living with roommates to reduce rent and utilities, eating in to keep food costs down, not having credit card debt, etc.
 
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...and dont most lenders only allow you to borrow up to the cost of attendance?
 
...and dont most lenders only allow you to borrow up to the cost of attendance?

You can only borrow the cost of attendance

some schools will increase this amount for medical expenses, car insurance, and some other expenses
 
most are pretty generous, they budget for you to get your own apartment so as long as you live with roomates which almost everyone does you'll come out several thousand ahead if you borrow the whole thing.

Your first year I'd recommend borrowing the whole thing to see what happens, plus you might need some money for a summer program, but beyond that you most likely won't need it all . . . UNLESS you live in a very expensive city (Boston, NYC, LA, etc.).
 
So what do people do to cover the remainder in expensive cities? I always thought the cost of attendance was proportional to cost of living, I.e. It would be higher in nyc, la, etc.
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