Breakdown of an average student’s budget
A quick post today. I found this infographic while surfing the internet a few days ago:
Did any of the numbers shock you?
According to this data, 66% of students receive a mean monthly amount of $312 from home. Seriously? I think during my 5 years of post-secondary education, I received a few care packages (of mostly food) from my mom, but all of them combined probably didn’t equal $312. And I never received cold, hard cash. I wish.
When I lived in Michigan for University, I had to live off of the money I made during the summers when I was home (I wasn’t allowed to get a part-time job because I was an ‘international’ student-athlete, and there was some rule against it). True, I had a full athletic scholarship, but I earned that myself.
When I went to college in my hometown, I worked 2 part-time jobs in order to afford to feed myself. Although to be fair, I did live at home. I didn’t pay rent, but I did pay for everything else like school, books, equipment, groceries, gas, cell phone, etc. I struggled a fair bit (hence the $20,000 worth of debt when I graduated), but my parents never offered to give or lend me money, and I never asked.
Some of the stats shown are from a 2006 survey, so they’re a little outdated, but that’s also the year I graduated from college. They surveyed 1,200 students from 100 different schools nationwide (USA). It didn’t say whether the students were living on their own, or with their parents, which I assume would make a huge difference if we saw that split.
Was there anything from this infographic that you found surprising?
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I don’t believe that $57 is the average cost for a new textbook, unless they are counting things that aren’t textbooks (like novels and notes packages that professors put together and sell at the bookstore) in that average. Even my used textbooks are never that cheap. I only needed two textbooks this semester, and I was able to get both of them used. It still came to almost $300. (I had a textbook reimbursement for up to $300, so I didn’t look very hard for cheaper used versions which I know are out there, but it was still a big discount off of the new copies.)
Penny´s latest post —> Book Review: The Millionaire Next Door
I’m with you. I’m lucky if my textbooks are that cheap used. Now or in 2006.
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Does the $312/month include RESPs or other savings plans? For that to make sense I imagine it must. I did receive $6,000 a year from a savings plan that my parents had invested in for education (they could not touch the money, it could only be used for children’s education). Of course my tuition was $10K and my out of town living costs/books etc was another $10K-$15K so it helped but I still relied on my scholarships/bursaries/work & student loans to cover the rest!
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I agree with Penny about the books.
When I was in college, most of my friends received money for dorm/food/spending money from their parents. And these were kids from average middle class families. So I could believe it based on my own experience. I even had a friend who came here from Mexico and his mom sent him money (granted they weren’t poor Mexicans but they weren’t well off either). I lived at home to save money and had a full time job. Had I moved out, I would’ve had to support myself almost 100%. My parents would’ve paid for my health insurance since I was still eligible to be on my dad’s policy at that time but they couldn’t have afforded anything else.
I think the biggest thing I notice is that working your way through school without debt is often not feasible. My parents were able to go away to college and pay for it outright with their work in the summer and part-time during the year.
They wanted me to do the same, but tuition has risen so steeply, that it’s not practical anymore. The amount the average student working part-time makes is not even enough to cover rent!
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I agree with you. It’s hard to get through University debt-free. I definitely didn’t, but my sister will graduate next year without any debt. She lives at home, but she also pays for her own tuition, books, and living expenses (minus rent) by working 2 jobs throughout the school year.
I also have a friend who graduated from University debt-free, and she lived in Vancouver. Paid rent, tuition, living expenses, etc all on her own with no help from her parents. In fact, I think she ended up graduating with money in the bank!
So it is possible, but extremely rare.
My husband and I both graduated from University with no debt (other than real mortgage debt). We weren’t students at the same time, and we had a little help (the equivalent of rent) from our parents. But we both got scholarships for hard work, and worked during school and in the summers to pay our expenses. We lived cheaply – no cell phones, tiny shared apartments, no car, almost no travel. Being debt-free was important enough to us to make it happen. It doesn’t always work, but I’m guessing that if it were important to more students, more of them would be able to graduate without significant debt. It depends on what your priorities are.
I agree with the books argument, although, again, this is 2008-9 and books have certainly continued to increase in cost in the 3 years since. I would guess the cost is closer to $90 now.
The tuition and fees and room and board percentages are a little hard to interpret. Seems like there would be a huge difference in allocation if you looked at public and private universities separately. It seems like for the sake of this pie chart they’ve just averaged public and private.
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I do find this shocking! I never paid ONLY $57 for a text book, especially a brand new one. They are always around $200-$250. I also didn’t get money from home and I don’t think any of my friends did either.
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Like everyone else, the price of books strikes me as very unrealistic… even my used books can go up to $100-$150 depending on what type of textbooks they were. And then you have supplemental texts for $10-$20. Everything adds up.
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The amount of discretionary really shocks me, and that tuition is such a small percentage. What are students buying? There are so many free events on campus, heck, even frat parties are free. Lots of kids take vacations – what do they need a vacation from, college is easy?!
Ugh- my text books for last term and this term amounted to at least $500 each term, and this includes buying used online from Amazon AND picking it up from the border.
I agree with Kim- students seem entitled to vacation during the off time (spring break, anyone?) and this can add loads to student loans and debt
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Totally agree about the vacations. But for some Universities in the USA, you cannot actually stay on campus during spring break. Mine shut down completely, and I was forced to go somewhere. And for those who are living away from home, it could be just as expensive to fly home than it is to go on vacation.
I’m a little surprised how many more students own a DVD player than a digital music player. I lived on my mp3 player during long walks to class (also in Michigan!).
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Absolutely everything in that infographic surprised me. I don’t know what country’s stats that infographic is measuring, but one of the stats talks about Yale – I just want to point out that the families of the students that can afford to go to Yale can probably afford to give them money and cell phones and send them on vacation.
As a student (and I’ve been a student for the last 5+ years), I’ve never experienced a student that is like the ones in that infographic. Vacations are not an option, because we don’t get a spring break – I don’t know if it’s standard in Canada, but in BC we only get a 2-3 day reading break (except when the olympics were on). They’re also not an option because of the cost! I know it’s somewhat of an American tradition to go on vacation on spring break from college, but that definitely does not happen as much in Canada. I have never in my life received cash from my parents.
I wonder if the discretionary spending part includes groceries, since it says nowhere on there about food, and unfortunately people have to eat. Plus, bills – you can’t be a student without the internet (you would fail every single class I’ve ever taken, anyway), what about transportation (bus and/or gas) if you don’t live on campus. I would assume that all goes under discretionary, which isn’t really discretionary!
It’s also probably just the schools I’ve gone to, but most of my peers that I’ve gotten to know work much more than 15-20 hours a week. It’s an interesting image!
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Well I’ve been a student in Canada and in the USA, and I know people that go on vacation every year as a student. In the USA, there was Thanksgiving break (4 days), as well as spring break. Plus the holidays. And most people went somewhere not because they want to, but because they have to. My university in Michigan actually closes down the entire campus during breaks, and for those of us who were living on campus, we had to leave. The first year I was there, I had nowhere to go, and it was a HUGE deal for the international advisor assigned to me, to find me accommodation on campus for free (since I couldn’t stay in my own dorm b/c the building was closed down).
And of the students I know in Canada, almost all of them went on vacation for reading break. Then there’s weekend getaways, etc. It can add up.
I’m not surprised by the whopping 40% discretionary. Mostly because I was an irresponsible student and I imagine there were others like me? I spent money (that wasn’t mine) like it was water on things like booze, restaurants, clothes, you name it. Books were definitely more in the $100-$150 range like everyone else is saying, even when they are used!
I knew surprisingly few people that worked during school but I definitely should have been one of them, because I definitely wasn’t receiving $312 from home every month!
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I am currently a student and I LOVE it when I can go home and get a meal let alone $500!!! I wish.
I am currently living off the money I made in the summer (covers my rent) and then working 2 part-time jobs in order to pay bills. To be fair, one part-time is more like a casual job. But still, two jobs.
I don’t spend 40% of my income on miscellaneous entertainment. Most my income goes to bills (internet, phone, utilities and food).
I wish I was this person. I would be saving all the “extra” money to do something like not have loans and moving away!
Maybe some of them are renting textbooks — I rented this term through CollegeBookRenter.com, and came out at about $40 per book — although I had to pay another $60 when one got slightly water-damaged. :( But then I resold it on Amazon for $32 net, to someone in Alaska who doesn’t care about the water damage!
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@MLISunderstanding: That is to say, “net of Amazon fees”, because after I got that money, I still ended up paying about $71 for the rental. Better than new!
MLISunderstanding´s latest post —> Why save? ’cause I’m stubborn.
How is the average price of textbooks $57?! I don’t think I ever had a single class where the textbook was under $120! I couldn’t even get a textbook for less than $60 even if I was buying used!
Craziness!
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I am a parent who is paying for my kid’s university bachelor’s degree in full. Her program of study is only available in another province, and the program expectations outside of class time make it impossible for her to have a part-time job during the school year (this is true of a lot of fine arts and hands-on programs).
Here is a breakdown of the annual expenses:
Tuition and student fees, including fees specific to her program $6800
Books and mandatory art supplies $2000-2500
Monthly living expenses off-campus including $25/week spending money $1365 (8 month academic year = $10,920)
Note: residence fees including meal plan run from $8578 to $10848, but waiting lists are so long it was impossible to get in)
Monthly living expenses do include cell phone, Internet and local public transit
Total annual = $20,220
Even putting down this kind of money, my kid is completely unlike her classmates who live at home, go on vacations and pay for entertainment and restaurant meals. By their standards, she is living in poverty.
When I attended university, tuition was approx $1200 and I could make $2250 working full-time for the summer. It’s a different world out there!
49% Work Part Time – that’s surprising to me – maybe 15% of the engineers worked part time when I went to school. Perhaps other majors “picked up the slack”? Maybe if it counted internships, but then I feel it would be in the 70% to 80% range.
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don’t judge others by the funding they got for one’s education…i don’t see you saying the same regarding your parents helping out with your house downpayment (oopps…did I say that outloud?)
I wasn’t judging others, I was merely saying that I found the statistic shocking. $300+ per month is a lot of money.
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