Here's my thinking on that: "CoA" estimates are silly bullshit, and are off by at least 25% per my understanding (IIRC they use an "avg" cost for the credits which is fudged, and then wildly underestimate costs of books/food/housing.
Now, I would personally have this UMich burnt to the ground and, salted, and then have radioactive waste s…
Here's my thinking on that: "CoA" estimates are silly bullshit, and are off by at least 25% per my understanding (IIRC they use an "avg" cost for the credits which is fudged, and then wildly underestimate costs of books/food/housing.
Now, I would personally have this UMich burnt to the ground and, salted, and then have radioactive waste stored there in a southeast Michigan Yucca Mountain branch depository, but I hear most people will agree it's pretty good:
UMich reports 33k "cost of attendance" (in-state, before finaid). UMich is by far the best school in Michigan for undergrad, the 2nd best school is MSU with an argument (for very specific life plans) Mich Tech as 2nd (or 3rd).
MSU reports >31k, Michigan Tech 33k, Uni of Illinois 32k, Grand Valley 28k, Lake Superior State 28k, EMU 31k. Central Mich 27, Western Mich 29k.
Accepting that they are massively under-costing the CoA and UMich is def over 40k, then MSU/Mich Tech are over 40k as well. Grand Valley is... probably close. However, even if you don't accept my premise that they are underestimating costs by 30% (which I think they are), please consider this fallback position:
Lake Superior State costs 85% of UMich and 90% of MSU. EMU somehow costs as much as MSU? These prices make 0 sense from a cost-benefit direction. Both my parents have degrees from EMU so forgive me fam, but EMU has a TERRIBLE rep. It's basically a state run degree mill. Somehow it costs more than Western/Central (both schools with much better reputations). Something is rotten...
I'd also note that I looked into MSU's detailed breakdown and it seems to be based off "sophomore" credit prices, but of course it goes up 2k/year once you're a "junior" (which, for many people (if they are going off credit hours on your transcript (see note) means you're paying junior rates for 3 years if you enter with any decent level of AP credits).
note: IDK how they still do it, but I know that (oh lord) almost 20 years ago the internal system and (iirc) the prices did this. I could purchase restricted parking passes as a 1st year b/c the system had me as a sophomore on credits from AP and as a sophomore I was a junior.
So, overall the costs are at least somewhat off and I suggest substantially off once you account for books/fees (many classes have required online services now)/actual cost of living (i.e. you're going to sometimes eat off campus or spend money on clothing/travel/car).
EDIT: Also, note apart from undercalculating the actual cost of room/board/books/fees/tuition, there's also the cost of "doing college". A huge part of the value of college is club activities, trips, conferences, learning opportunities, study abroad, all of which cost more and none of which are included. I'd guess that being on a travel club sport team would cost 1.5k-2.5k per year. Huge learning experience, life lessons, fun, development/personal growth and incredibly worth it, but also another 2k/year they don't include. Stuff like this adds up and is why I think a school listing 32k/year has students actually spending 40k+/year to attend.
Ok, I don’t really understand why we’d want to talk about total cost of attendance including costs of living that would be incurred independently of going to college. But that explains why your numbers were so striking.
There’s no way they’re underestimating the costs of books, though. You don’t even have to buy the books and you just sell them back at a small loss if for some reason you decide to get them. And it’s a 3-digit number. I just looked at the current calculations for IU where I went and they seem very plausible. I’m sure many students spend more but I don’t really see how it’s the university’s fault if some students go out a lot.
For me, and maybe people disagree, it's fair to include in the real total cost of attendance. If you don't go to college and get a job you'll do some of those things, sure, but you'll also scale your activities to your income (at least in theory... consumer credit card usage may disagree). Many college kids are handing interest bearing loans and told "use this to support your life in college, pay it back when you've got the fancy job" and then go onto make terrible decisions.
The thing I really don't like about this is you're basically asking them, for every single purchasing decision to weigh it over some long time horizon. It's just not something people are good at doing, especially when combined with the assumption that most people have that they're going to graduate and walk straight into a cool job that pays well forever.
At the same time, we want them to do some of this stuff b/c it's hugely important in them actually learning/becoming useful (i.e. you'll learn more running a collegiate club as a senior than in a semester of classes).
If you live on campus, buy used books/acquire them offline, do no clubs, do no off campus activities, have parent provided healthcare where your parents cover all health expenses/co-pays, it's a good CoA model. The less this is true the more you're in for 20-30% more per year. Which I have an issue with b/c they're advertising "low" cost of attendance that doesn't represent what people are actually spending.
Here's my thinking on that: "CoA" estimates are silly bullshit, and are off by at least 25% per my understanding (IIRC they use an "avg" cost for the credits which is fudged, and then wildly underestimate costs of books/food/housing.
Now, I would personally have this UMich burnt to the ground and, salted, and then have radioactive waste stored there in a southeast Michigan Yucca Mountain branch depository, but I hear most people will agree it's pretty good:
UMich reports 33k "cost of attendance" (in-state, before finaid). UMich is by far the best school in Michigan for undergrad, the 2nd best school is MSU with an argument (for very specific life plans) Mich Tech as 2nd (or 3rd).
MSU reports >31k, Michigan Tech 33k, Uni of Illinois 32k, Grand Valley 28k, Lake Superior State 28k, EMU 31k. Central Mich 27, Western Mich 29k.
Accepting that they are massively under-costing the CoA and UMich is def over 40k, then MSU/Mich Tech are over 40k as well. Grand Valley is... probably close. However, even if you don't accept my premise that they are underestimating costs by 30% (which I think they are), please consider this fallback position:
Lake Superior State costs 85% of UMich and 90% of MSU. EMU somehow costs as much as MSU? These prices make 0 sense from a cost-benefit direction. Both my parents have degrees from EMU so forgive me fam, but EMU has a TERRIBLE rep. It's basically a state run degree mill. Somehow it costs more than Western/Central (both schools with much better reputations). Something is rotten...
I'd also note that I looked into MSU's detailed breakdown and it seems to be based off "sophomore" credit prices, but of course it goes up 2k/year once you're a "junior" (which, for many people (if they are going off credit hours on your transcript (see note) means you're paying junior rates for 3 years if you enter with any decent level of AP credits).
note: IDK how they still do it, but I know that (oh lord) almost 20 years ago the internal system and (iirc) the prices did this. I could purchase restricted parking passes as a 1st year b/c the system had me as a sophomore on credits from AP and as a sophomore I was a junior.
So, overall the costs are at least somewhat off and I suggest substantially off once you account for books/fees (many classes have required online services now)/actual cost of living (i.e. you're going to sometimes eat off campus or spend money on clothing/travel/car).
EDIT: Also, note apart from undercalculating the actual cost of room/board/books/fees/tuition, there's also the cost of "doing college". A huge part of the value of college is club activities, trips, conferences, learning opportunities, study abroad, all of which cost more and none of which are included. I'd guess that being on a travel club sport team would cost 1.5k-2.5k per year. Huge learning experience, life lessons, fun, development/personal growth and incredibly worth it, but also another 2k/year they don't include. Stuff like this adds up and is why I think a school listing 32k/year has students actually spending 40k+/year to attend.
Ok, I don’t really understand why we’d want to talk about total cost of attendance including costs of living that would be incurred independently of going to college. But that explains why your numbers were so striking.
There’s no way they’re underestimating the costs of books, though. You don’t even have to buy the books and you just sell them back at a small loss if for some reason you decide to get them. And it’s a 3-digit number. I just looked at the current calculations for IU where I went and they seem very plausible. I’m sure many students spend more but I don’t really see how it’s the university’s fault if some students go out a lot.
For me, and maybe people disagree, it's fair to include in the real total cost of attendance. If you don't go to college and get a job you'll do some of those things, sure, but you'll also scale your activities to your income (at least in theory... consumer credit card usage may disagree). Many college kids are handing interest bearing loans and told "use this to support your life in college, pay it back when you've got the fancy job" and then go onto make terrible decisions.
The thing I really don't like about this is you're basically asking them, for every single purchasing decision to weigh it over some long time horizon. It's just not something people are good at doing, especially when combined with the assumption that most people have that they're going to graduate and walk straight into a cool job that pays well forever.
At the same time, we want them to do some of this stuff b/c it's hugely important in them actually learning/becoming useful (i.e. you'll learn more running a collegiate club as a senior than in a semester of classes).
If you live on campus, buy used books/acquire them offline, do no clubs, do no off campus activities, have parent provided healthcare where your parents cover all health expenses/co-pays, it's a good CoA model. The less this is true the more you're in for 20-30% more per year. Which I have an issue with b/c they're advertising "low" cost of attendance that doesn't represent what people are actually spending.