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A Balancing Act
NEW YORK (MainStreet) – As college admissions letters roll in, so do the financial aid and scholarship packages. Decisions need to be made and the cost of tuition and room and board play a strong role in planning which college to go to. However, MainStreet and Bundle.com have partnered up to take into account another side of a student’s financial life: the cost of living.
Bundle took the top 100 most expensive schools from CampusGrotto.com, which ranked the schools based on cost of tuition plus room and board, then added its own data on extra expenses in the entertainment, groceries, general shopping and dining out categories. These were the most expensive items coming out of a student’s wallet, according to Matthew Yang, a data analyst at Bundle.com.
MainStreet wanted to see which of the most expensive schools in America actually had low out-of-pocket expenses, since college expenses can vary widely depending on where the college is located. So, we added up the average spending per month in each of the four categories to see how much a student pays purely on extras in a month.
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9th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Loyola University Maryland
Tuition/Room and Board: $48,600
Total Monthly Extras: $820
Students at Loyola University Maryland, a private university in Baltimore, don’t shell out a lot for living expenses. Typically, they spend an average $350 on general shopping and $237 for grocery expenses, while dining out costs close to $200 and entertainment is only $33.
Loyola tied with Johns Hopkins University (see the next slide).
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9th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Johns Hopkins University
Tuition/Room and Board: $53,190
Total Monthly Extras: $820
Johns Hopkins University is another Baltimore-based private university known for its research programs in science, medicine and engineering. It shares the same record as Loyola in terms of cost of living, mainly because both schools are in the same city. The only difference, of course, is the price of tuition.
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8th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Colby College
Tuition/Room and Board: $51,990
Total Monthly Extras: $818
Colby is a four-year liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. Colby students spent the least amount on entertainment ($23) of all of the expensive schools and around $350 on general shopping, $282 on groceries and $165 on eating out.
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7th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Hamilton College
Tuition/Room and Board: $51,350
Total Monthly Extras: $812
Hamilton College is a liberal arts college in Clinton, N.Y. Known as one of the “Little Ivies,” a group of elite liberal arts colleges in the northeastern U.S., the average student only spends $325 on general shopping, $300 on groceries, $150 on dining out and roughly $25 on entertainment.
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6th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Kenyon College
Tuition/Room and Board: $48,920
Total Monthly Extras: $809
Kenyon is a private liberal arts college located in Gambier, Ohio. Students only spend about $300 in general shopping and another $300 in groceries, $172 on dining out and $36 on entertainment.
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5th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Drexel University
Tuition/Room and Board: $51,125
Total Monthly Extras: $782
Located in the City of Brotherly Love, the private research university is quite a catch for students in a big U.S. city. Drexel attendees only spend $321 on general shopping, $218 on groceries, $196 on dining out and $46 on entertainment.
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4th Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Bates College
Tuition/Room and Board: $53,300
Total Monthly Extras: $767
Bates is a prestigious liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. It’s also spend the second-least on entertainment, at only $24 per month. On average, Bates students spend $323 on general shopping, $263 on groceries and $157 on dining out.
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3rd Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: Case Western Reserve University
Tuition/Room and Board: $48,700
Total Monthly Extras: $705
Case Western is a private research university in Cleveland and grabbed this spot because it spent the second-least on general shopping ($278). Students don’t need to dole out a lot here, and spend about $250 on groceries, $148 on dining out and $30 on entertainment.
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2nd Pricey College With Low Extra Costs: St. John’s College
Tuition/Room and Board: $51,776
Total Monthly Extras: $657
Located in Annapolis, Md., St. John’s College is best known for its chronological Western human sciences curriculum, which rigorously explores scientific innovations, and philosophic and literary canons in Western civilization. St. John’s grabs the number two spot because its students spent the second least amount in both the dining out and grocery categtories. Students usually spend $338 on general spending, $185 on groceries, $110 on dining out and $25 on entertainment.
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The Pricey College With the Lowest Extra Costs: Fordham University – Rose Hill
Tuition/Room and Board: $52,036
Total Monthly Extras: $544
The Bronx, N.Y.-based Fordham University took the top spot in our rankings. Fordham was the clear contender for first place because its students spent the least amount in general shopping, grocery shopping and dining out.
Even though this university is part of an expensive metropolitan city, students pay $253 in general shopping, $153 in groceries, $109 in eating out and $28 on entertainment. Living off-campus is decently-priced too, costing only $1,200 per month for rent.
This is in stark comparison to Fordham’s two biggest neighboring universities, New York University and Columbia University, whose students spend an average $1,806 on living costs.
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The Most Expensive East Coast Colleges
Bundle has ranked the top spending East Coast colleges based on tuition, room and board, and all the extras.
Click here to see their list of pricey schools.
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