In total, how much do you spend in a full year of grad school?

[dapper]

Im trying to get an idea of how much money grad school will cost me per year.

With a stipend ~15,000$ and rent on an apartment ~600/month that would leave about 7800$ (approximately I know the numbers wouldnt work out that well) for other necessities. So Im wondering, is it possible to get through and entire year on your stipend? Taking into account; food, transportation, school supplies etc..

it seems reasonable to do because eight thousand dollars should be enough for an entire years worth of food and travel, what do you guys think? Ive never done this before obviously...

[Spore]

This answer to this question is both school (public vs private), type of program (professional vs research-oriented), location of school and finiancial award dependent.

Obviously, attending and living close to Columbia University is a different animal than going to school in Indiana or Florida.

I believe, as do others, that the most important thing is to take out as few loans as possible.

If you can survive on only 8K of loans per year, you will very likely be able to repay your loans quickly once you start working in your field of choice.

[plastic_enthusiast]

Have you drawn up a monthly budget of your current expenses yet? Once you've done that, compare it to the cost of living wherever you're moving to (if you're moving). That's the only way to get a realistic idea. Include ALL of your current expenses too - drinking, having fun, renting movies, etc. It's easy to say you'll just give that up as a grad student, but grad school is a very stressful time and you will need diversions and things to keep you occupied. You'll also need to buy healthy food.

I lived entirely off my stipend about $10,000 my first 2 years and then $12,000 the next three; my rent was only $355 though. I had to save up money throughout the year for the 2 months over the summer wehre I wasn't getting paid as well.

Edited May 22, 2012 by plastic_enthusiast

[Usmivka]

Agreed, totally location dependent.

I moved to an area with some of the higher rental costs in the country (not the worst by a long shot!), and food is more expensive to boot because I'm now further from the green belts where most agriculture occurs. Utilities switched from being mostly super cheap hydroelectric to very expensive gas and oil heat and coal based power plants. I'd say my normal monthly costs (including transportation) went from roughly $900/month to ~$1450/mo, and came with a major downgrade in my quality of life (if I had a similar apartment and recreational activities here, I think my costs would be about $2200/mo). This is part of the territory in downgrading from a 'real' job to grad school, but it was definitely more than I bargained for because of economic factors outside my control (rents spiked because fewer people were buying condos, and they won't come back down because I'm in a student heavy city where there is always new demand regardless of price or quality).

On the other hand I have in-laws who moved to Florida from the same area, and their costs have gone down substantially.

[OregonGal]

If you're absolutely sure that the rent will be around $600 (market research? on campus apartment?) then you should go from there. Does that $7800 include paying for books, supplies? Will you need to buy a new laptop for grad school? How many times do you want to visit home, and how much will that cost in airfare etc? Once you've subtracted those lump sum costs, you can split the remainder up to see how much you have to live on per month (do you need it for 12 months or 9?). I'd also suggest doing some detailed tracking of your expenses; I've been doing that the last couple months and it's interesting how little things tend to add up over time, or what I buy which I wouldn't have included in my budgeting originally.

[Eigen]

Things that I don't see reflected in your budget that may or may not apply to you:

Phone/Cell Phone/Internet

Insurance- Health, Car, Life, Renters

Utilities- Water, Sewer, Garbage, Gas, Electric

Car-Related expenses

Then there are all the "occasional" expenses, that end up being a lot more regular than you think:

Medicine, Doctors Visits (copays), deposits, university fees, moving costs, damage deposit on the apartment, parking/public transport/bike upkeep costs, etc.

[ktel]

OreganGal pretty much describes how I made my budget. I budgeted for the worst case scenario, only including funding I was guaranteed to get (I have since gotten more funding which will nicely pad the budget). I then subtracted lump sum expenses, which included: tuition, books, moving, gifts for special occasions (i.e. Christmas), travel and a new category which is my dog. From that I divided the remainder by 24 (the longest possible length of my program hopefully) and was left with my monthly budget. Over half of it goes to rent and food.

[TakeruK]

I think the biggest location-dependent factor is rent, once you've subtracted that from your income, then the rest of it can be compared relatively uniformly with where you live now, taking into account obvious differences such as sales taxes. When I was considering schools and trying to make sense of all these different stipend values in different cities, I did some research to find the average rent for the kind of place I wanted to live in, then subtracted out rent and insurance and other necessary expenses. I figured it was pretty fair to compare the remaining balance directly at each school.

So, I think it might be a good idea to compare that balance with what you are spending now on food and supplies etc. to quickly estimate how much you would need. Food and other expendable supplies (e.g. toiletries) is definitely the second highest cost after rent, and my wife and I spend $500 per month on this (so $6000 per year)...I think if I was living alone, I would spend 2/3rds of this, so about $4000 per year. School supplies don't cost me very much, a few hundred if I have a lot of textbooks to buy.

Not included in the above lists are clothes (will need to replace worn out ones), and most importantly, startup costs! (buying furniture, moving expenses, etc.) But make sure you divide these one-time costs by the total length of your program though. Finally, don't forget taxes if they apply!

[Bimmerman]

This might have been mentioned, but your stipend is most likely NOT tax-free. I.e. you will have to save money and send in quarterly estimated tax payments. These aren't bad, and the amount won't be too high either, but you will want to plan for them. Talk to your financial aid folks and see if the 15k is pre or post tax.

[ktel]

^ Unless you're Canadian, in which case it very well might be tax free

[ANDS!]

Im trying to get an idea of how much money grad school will cost me per year.

With a stipend ~15,000$ and rent on an apartment ~600/month that would leave about 7800$ (approximately I know the numbers wouldnt work out that well) for other necessities. So Im wondering, is it possible to get through and entire year on your stipend? Taking into account; food, transportation, school supplies etc..

it seems reasonable to do because eight thousand dollars should be enough for an entire years worth of food and travel, what do you guys think? Ive never done this before obviously...

Is this for 12 months or 9 months? Your school might be operating under the assumption that you will seek/find summer employment or there may be summer funding available. I would check on this. Because 15000 for 9 months is pretty doable.