Money Talks: How Much Is "This" Going to Cost Me?

"Good job son, now how much is this going to cost me?"

Great question Mom, well school fees are about $7,800 a year.

"And do you not need to eat or live on campus?"

An even better question.

Here's the thing - university is going to cost you, a lot.

How much exactly?

The National University of Singapore (NUS), my rival school, but hey they turned up first on the search rankings and had a nice landing page so yeah, estimates that an average undergraduate living on campus will spend about $10,000SGD a year, on top of your annual school fees.

This all sounds daunting, and can leave you in a mess if you are unprepared. What I wish someone told me beforehand, was to plan out how much I would need each semester and how I would obtain that amount of money - assuming we didn't have the elusive money tree planted in our void decks or backyards.

I began planning how much university was going to cost me around the end of my first semester. This made me realise that I was going to need a part-time job during winter break and also to evaluate how I was spending my money in school. My daily dose of bubble tea ($4) had to go, my sugar levels soon thanked me.

NUS's estimation of how much a student of theirs will spend is unlikely applicable to you unless you plan to go there.

Instead, what I can recommend to being your planning is to start with a simple Google search of your future university's annual tuition fee, estimated on-campus expense as well as location's living expenses (not all of us will be going to a university in our home country right?).

#money #tuition #cost #university #planning