I'm curious what people have experienced as the actual cost of attendance in College Station. The university estimates $31,058 for living on campus. Not accounting for financial aid, is that about the real cost? Have you found it to be more expensive or less expensive for you?

https://aggie.tamu.edu/billing-and-payments/cost-and-tuition-rates/undergraduate-cost-of-attendance

That list is really only applicable of a kid paying for themselves. From a parents perspective you are already paying for some or all of your kids food, travel and personal expenses. So I really only consider the tuition, housing, university fees and books as the cost of attendance.

First semester cost us $10,800 living on campus. That include NCS fees and hotel plus Fish Camp. Total is after $2K in scholarships.

Does not include any "Momma seed money" that gets passed under the table!!

AD- thanks! That is an excellent point that some of these costs are not new. At the same time, it looks like I can feed my son a lot more cheaply at home than at college...

1Aggie- Just confirming you are saying total cost was ~$12,800 but $10,800 out of pocket due to $2k scholarships? Either way, that is well under the official A&M estimate, so that is great! And I totally get the extra cash. I sure always appreciated any extra cash when I was a student!

Yes tuition,room and board, admin fee (1400 / semester), sports pass, rec fee, health fee, parking pass, books, and others I am trying to erase from my mind. Tuition is cheap- the other required stuff is what gets you! My kids graduated '22 and '23. Another one will in the corps next year so I have a small break.
Easily 12k a semester

Yes. That was out actual cost. He's TEAB so straight TAMU is likely 2K or so more. That number includes both

My son is currently a sophomore and when he lived on campus last year it was right about $15,000 a semester . He was a full admit to A&M so all hours at A&M in terms of tuition and fees. Also was in a dorm, meal plan, sports pass, and parking spot.

That might just be a tad high. A&M is very reasonably priced.

Have a daughter there now. $31k feels high

Same. My daughter has lived in good places, but $800-850 has been fine to cover living including utilities. So that's about $10k across a year. Tuition, fees, parking, etc probably runs about $15-16k. I think the last $5k in those estimates includes costs that you are paying for any kid still on mom and dad's payroll, not cost to attend a school

So the tuition and fees for my son for fall and spring totals $14,410 and then we spend another $950 a month for rent. My son is a mechanical engineering major so freshman year we had to spend several thousand for a laptop that met engineering requirements and a new I-Pad to use for taking notes. And most textbooks are now subscriptions to platforms or online textbooks.

Thanks everyone for the input! It looks like I'm seeing an annual cost range from ~$25k on the low end to ~$30k on the high end, with the helpful note that some of those costs are not really new, just paid differently.

In the thick of it now, it is $25-$35k per year. Range depends on the kid and the kid's behavior (Food plan, discipline to food plan, club costs. etc.).

Kid just got an official acceptance to a decent private school… the cost of attendance in the welcome package was listed at $95000 a year .

Another Doug said:

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Kid just got an official acceptance to a decent private school… the cost of attendance in the welcome package was listed at $95000 a year .

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SMU?

That is their way of saying, "we are pretty much rejecting you but will find a spot if you are dumb enough to pay more than double..."

No a School in nyc , came with a decent scholarship but starting price point, just makes it crazy unless you get a full ride.

sek92 said:

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Yes tuition,room and board, admin fee (1400 / semester), sports pass, rec fee, health fee, parking pass, books, and others I am trying to erase from my mind. Tuition is cheap- the other required stuff is what gets you! My kids graduated '22 and '23. Another one will in the corps next year so I have a small break.
Easily 12k a semester

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the corps is the way to go. Every cadet gets some scholarship money even if they aren't contract. My son got 3-4K a year. Also, they are on campus so you pay for dorm and meal plan at the beginning, so everything is up front. Obviously spending money, little stuff throughout the year, but it's been very easy, relatively speaking.

with the scholarhsip money and being cheaper dorms its been more like 22 to 24 a year for us

Can anyone find historical data online for fixed vs. variable tuition rate for college of engineering? Or is anyone willing to share what they actually paid or were quoted over the past few years?

My son will be an incoming freshman fall 2024 so we need to make a decision soon. I am leaning variable based on anecdotal information from recent graduates indicating they would have paid less overall if they had chosen variable but would like to take a look at the actual numbers myself.

I'm also concerned the tuition freeze for 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 will cause a huge jump the following year if legislature doesn't enact an additional freeze or limit on increase. This might make the fixed rate a better choice but perhaps that big jump will already be baked into the difference between fixed and variable whenever the tuition rates are published.

It looks like I can play with the tuition calculator to get the locked rates going back to 2019/2020 but, by nature of the calculator, I can only see variable rate for 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, which are the same due to the freeze.

Bump for checking if any one happens to have variable rate tuition rates for college of engineering for years before 22-23 school year.

Trying to figure out if variable or fixed is better as well. Just heard about it and my wife said that TexAgs would know.

Dover97 said:

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Trying to figure out if variable or fixed is better as well. Just heard about it and my wife said that TexAgs would know.

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Smart wife! Mine is a sip and even she defers to all things TexAgs.

Dover97 said:

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Trying to figure out if variable or fixed is better as well. Just heard about it and my wife said that TexAgs would know.

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We did fixed and it has been more expensive in the end, wish I had gone the other way. Talked to another parent who was putting kid #4 through A&M and they said they went variable on all of them and it was always cheaper.

If they have a major price spike that changes of course. Just don't know how likely that is.

As an aside I really don't like the way A&M does tuition and scholarships. They do way too much manipulation. They ask a tremendous amount of questions around income and resources in addition to FAFSA in the application and then have stuff like this. Then they have a ton of need based aid where anyone below a certain line goes tuition free and it scales up. They have a huge amount of exemptions for OOS students, all you need is $4k in scholarships and certain majors get it automatically now in Galveston. They put a lot of value on First Gen.

We have a monster endowment, large donation base, and state funding. Just make the cost less for everyone. The sticker price for A&M that most students pay is far more than a lot of in state rates at other comparable schools. Why people that pay the most in taxes in Texas and often are multi generational Aggies who have given to the school also have to pay the most is just a bad system. It's already hard enough for those kids to even get in with the Top 10% rule impacting them at a greatly disproportionate rate since they are most likely to come from the highly competitive large Public schools in nice areas where being in the Top 10% is extremely competitive.

I never did find the exact data I was looking for. A few of the Aggie Parent Facebook groups have some data that supports going variable but it is from before the tuition freeze.

I did not realize the tuition freeze applied to both the fixed and variable rates. I am now leaning fixed with the assumption that variable will have a huge jump for 2025/2026 after not changing the previous 2 years. Hopefully that works out...