College By the Numbers, Year I

For those that are curious, I've compiled some numbers from my freshman year that may be useful. This info has been gathered from each of the quarters (Fall, Winter, and Spring), so you can click the links for more quarter-specific numbers.

Edit: It has been requested that I reveal the numbers on living expenses in the dorms. According to this WWU document, dorms (w/o meals) cost $5,571.

Each student is given a Laundry Card to use the washer and dryers on campus. Initially the cards have $1.75 on them, and then each student is responsible for reloading their card by going to the dining halls and paying cash at the converter. While doing laundry this year, I spent $19.50 from the card ($17.75 of cash onto the card), and found $8.39 in the machines, hidden in wet piles of lint, hair-ties, lipstick, and paperclips.

-17.75-8.39

[-$9.36]

In total, I spent $960.80 on 13 textbooks. Most of them I was able to sell back to the bookstore for some cash, but I'm going to try and do more student-to-student transactions when possible, to keep costs down and cash-back a little higher.

-960.80

[-$960.80]

Each quarter, students with certain meal plans are given $150 Dining Dollars on their ID cards. This money is for buying food and beverages at the on-campus diners and markets. The leftover money is carried over each quarter, except for summer, where it disappears. Of the $450 given to me, I easily spent it all.

450-450

[$0]

I paid for an Unlimited Meal Plan for three quarters, with the combined cost of $3,179. The unlimited plan allowed me to eat whenever the dining halls were open, without worrying about using up all of my meals.  I've been keeping track, and I've used 161 meals which equates to $1,233.75 if I had paid for each meal myself. Each quarter there were 10 guest passes available, and I used all 30.

Meals, 146 (1,125 of 1,208), 176 (1327.5 of 1049), (1233.75 of 922)

3686.25-3,179

[$507.25]

Each student is given $25 a quarter for printing off of the school's printers. With black and white costing $0.05 and color $0.25, that's 500 and 100 pages, respectively. Out of the $75 available to me, I only used $38.10, and all in black and white (762 pages). If students run out of this free account, printing cards can be purchased and reloaded in the library.

75-38

[-$37]

At the beginning of the year I had a $100 gift card to the Associated Students Bookstore to buy things other than textbooks. All of this money was used to buy pens, pencils, paper, CDs, surge protectors, and a few other things I needed throughout the quarter. I found it was really good to have the card on me, as I didn't have to spend my cash--which could then be used to buy other things, like bowling or hot dogs in Bellingham.