Small Costs Add Up!

Once I started to look into the costs for Santa Clara, I started to notice some small fees that I never heard of before. I am not an expert at what happens at other Universities across the United States so I don’t know if these are typical expenses.

• Firstly, there is a $636 University Enhancement fee for the entire year. This is to keep the campus looking beautiful and clean, however, over the four year time span, that is about $2,500 extra! Each quarter, (there are three for the typical student) you will need to pay $212.
• Next, for any Incoming Freshman, there is a mandatory orientation that you have to go on. There are a total of seven different times where the University allows you attend. From what I have discussed with other people planning their orientations, there is no price to attend. However, the base price for ONLY the Incoming Freshman to attend the orientation, is $305. The price for one parent to attend is an extra $135. The justification for the price is, “Fall 2020: the registration fee covers the costs of both Orientation and Welcome Weekend; this fee covers meals, materials, publications, activities, and administrative costs” (SCU.edu)
• Now this isn’t a untypical expense but, it definitely can be misleading. On the SCU Cost of Attendance page, it is listed that the housing and food plan cost will be about $15,507 but, when looking at the individual prices of the basic food plan with any housing, the average price is actually, $200 more. The average that I calculated is based solely on the double and triple room accommodations.
• Finally, there are a couple different parking permits that you can get (I will not be bringing a car to University with me to try and save money). There are different types of parking permits that you can get based on the locations of the parking lots and based on what time period you want the permit for. On the SCU website, they sell parking permits for yearly, semi-annual, quarterly, monthly, and daily (there is another price for motorcycles). The image below is a photo from their website breaking down the prices: