How accurate are the student budgets?

[Thenewguy02]

I've gotten a few financial aid packages and I've been looking at the COA for two schools. They are in similar COA areas (Saint Louis and Nashville), but the latter offers almost double the living allowance. At WashU:
Room and Board is 13k, 2.5k for misc., and 2.5k for travel. About 18k total for non-school related expenses.

At Vanderbilt:
Room is 15k, Meals is 6k, "personal" is 7k, and transportation is 3k. That's 31k for non-school related expenses.

If I choose Vanderbilt, should I just expect to not take the full loan budget out? Why is there this discrepancy? I realize rent will be a little cheaper at WashU, but not to this extent.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[bananafish94]

They're usually pretty accurate. The Vanderbilt one sounds quite generous, and you don't have to take all of it out. And you can always give back remaining money at the end of the year if you want.

 

[JPSmyth]

In my opinion the amounts that they allot for rent food travel misc are excessive. Take out only what you need to live off of!

 

[efle]

I think they try to err a little on the side of excess. Better for people to have something left over than to run out of funds.

I can tell you 13k for room+board is plenty for St. Louis even for living in your own apartment/without roommates. $2500 is also far more than you really need for travel unless you plan to fly to a small town many times per year.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

Also remember that they only give living expenses for the months in school. Looks like Vanderbilt pays for 12 months while the school I might go to pays for 10 months for example and provides much less funds. Not sure how long the breaks at WashU are.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I can tell you 13k for room+board is plenty for St. Louis even for living in your own apartment/without roommates.

Wish San Diego was like that!

 

[aldol16]

Well, I believe that schools that over-estimate are better than schools that under-estimate. I believe under federal law you cannot take out more loans than the student budget. So say a school underestimates - even slightly. You take out all the money in loans since you have to live and that just covers the cost of living. Now your car breaks down and you can't get to the rotation sites. It's a radiator issue so maybe it costs $1000 to fix/replace. Or maybe you need a car. Where are you gonna come up with that money? If they over-estimate to begin with, you have wiggle room. You don't have to report to the federal government what that money is being used for - it's just understood that the cost of attendance will be used for educationally-related expenses.

 

[Skenti]

In my experience several schools underestimate because they can say you only need to live there 9-10 months for 3 of the 4 years and budget with that in mind, but in reality who is moving out for that 2 month window every year? No one. That would be absurd, and impossible with a lease. I can say from experience that some of the NYC schools underestimate cost of living due to this 9-10 month nonsense.