Not-So-Obvious Expenses That Come With Having A Car At College

By Danielle Wirsansky on April 19, 2018

Students are excited about starting college for many reasons: a chance to start a new life; the adventure college brings; the first step on the journey to rest of their lives; and the freedom to do whatever they want… and be wherever they want. College students are often so excited about the perceived freedoms that they think college will bring that they can often overlook the burdens such freedoms will cost.

One of the biggest costs a student can have, and overlook, is having a car while at college. According to AAA, for vehicles driven 15,000 miles a year, average ownership costs added up to about $706 a month or $8,469 a year in 2017. And that number is for an everyday driver, not even a student driver.

The costs can add up. So before you make a decision, you should read about some of the not so obvious expenses that come with having a car at college!

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Parking

The first thing a student should investigate is what the parking is like at their college. If you were unaware, parking on a college campus is a huge challenge, for faculty, staff, and students alike. Clark Kerr, the former President of the University of California, once wrote, “I have sometimes thought of the modern [U.S.] university as a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking.”

Parking Today also claims that, “Without a doubt, parking is one of the most widespread and frustrating problems afflicting U.S. colleges and universities. Rising enrollment numbers are one of the main reasons that so many institutions are facing parking shortages. Enrollment jumped from 14.5 million to 18.2 million between 1997 and 2007, putting a severe strain on a service that’s already at the breaking point.”

There are many costs associated with parking that you should consider before making a final decision. The first is, how much does parking actually cost? Some universities allow you to park on campus for free, but those are few and far between. Most charge you a fee to even be able to park on campus, which is generally hundreds of dollars a year.

Why would the university charge students such exorbitant prices for something as simple as parking? Well, Parking Today also claims that the cost for a college to build just one parking spot is around $2,000. For a parking garage or other type of structure, the expense shoots up to somewhere between $13,000 and $15,000 per space. That is a pretty hefty price tag for a single spot—and a university has to cram as many spots into a parking lot or parking garage to make the addition to the campus worth the effort, both for students and the college itself. In order for the college to afford such structures and make sure the cost is sustainable, they have to charge students out the nose. The sooner and quicker the costs for these parking structures are covered, the sooner the university can focus its attention on making other needed improvements.

The addition of more parking also means an increase in traffic. And with changed traffic patterns caused by the addition of such parking structure, this means that the University would also be forced to perform a traffic analysis, another burden to the university. Campus and neighboring streets may not be up to the additional wear and tear on their aging roadways and other surfaces that increased traffic would bring.

Some universities offer metered parking, but even those prices are on the rise in order to discourage students from using it. Another option that universities may offer is a valet service. That way, when you are late to class or simply cannot find parking, someone will park your car for you. However, using this service every day can add up, ending up being truly expensive.

It is a tough problem for universities to solve, as many campuses simply lack the space to add parking facilities and others in the campus community believe that parking lots can negatively impact how aesthetically pleasing a campus is. A more beautiful campus attracts more students, so colleges do not want to put this at risk.

However, the college also knows that parking is a commodity that student absolutely need and will be willing to pay for, a product they cannot get anywhere else, and so the university can set whatever price they want, and the students will pay it. Supply and demand, right?

Infographic by Danielle Wirsansky

Permits

The next aspect of having a car while in college for you to investigate is parking permits. Most colleges, even small ones, require you to have a permit to park on campus. If you try to park on campus without a permit, you can get slapped with all sorts of fines for parking violations. They can be cumbersome and annoying, and they will certainly begin to add up if you continually violate the college’s parking permit rules.

Refusing to pay your fines is not really an option—the University will slap sanctions on you to prevent you from skipping out on your payments. If you do not pay in a timely manner, they might block you from registering for classes in the next semester until it is paid off. Or, if you are near graduation, they may hold your diploma hostage and refuse to give it out to you until the debt is paid. In case you did not know, the papers they hand out at graduation are not the actual diplomas—they are usually just rolled up pieces of paper. The university holds on to them and mails the diplomas out later to avoid making any mistakes when handing them out, and also to use as leverage to make sure they have truly gotten all of the money that they are due.

You also need to consider if your university will allow you to get a permit, depending on what your class designation is. Parking Today reports that “At many universities, it’s not uncommon for freshmen and sophomores not to be issued parking permits, restricting permits to upperclassmen only. Some urban colleges have taken this a step further. Columbia University in New York City, for example, doesn’t allow any students to park on campus. Only faculty and support staff members are issued parking permits.”

If your university does not allow you to even park on campus, you will need to consider if having your car while at college is even worth it. If you cannot park on campus, what are the other reasons you might need your car? Are there alternatives to getting around town that you could use instead? You might need to consider using one of them instead of your car while at school so you are not surprised by a hidden expense associated with having your car on campus when you cannot use it to its full capacity.

Insurance

Another not-so-obvious expense that comes with having a car at college is the insurance. This is a big factor that you need to consider if, when you go to college an accept all the independence that comes with being an adult, you are paying for your own insurance now. In high school, when your parents were paying for your car insurance, it was an easy to overlook expense. You were not the one paying it, so why would it really matter to you or weigh on your mind? But college is expensive enough on its own, and now as an adult, you might be expected to transition into paying your own insurance.

Even if you were expecting to pay your own car insurance, you might not realize how expensive it is going to be. College-aged drivers often have the most expensive rates for car insurance. Why? CarInsurance.Com explains, “College-age drivers typically have higher insurance rates because their age group is shown to be dangerous on the road. As you grow older, your rates will dip. See how average annual rates for drivers age 18 to 23 who have their own policies vary… ”

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This might seem unfair. Maybe you have never been in an accident—or if you were, it definitely, definitely was not your fault. You may never have even gotten a ticket before in your life. But insurance companies do not necessarily care about your driving history. They care about the driving history of all those similarly aged drivers that came before you.

Even if you are not going to be paying your own insurance, your parents are not going to want to be surprised by a high-cost insurance. They might make you bring your car back home, a huge hassle. Avoid all of that by investigating what your car insurance rates might be before you bring your car to college with you.

Gas

Gas is the next expense that you should consider before bringing your car to college with you. Gas prices were pretty low the last several years—until now of course. Gas prices starting steadily increasing in 2017. Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, said, “Nearly all cities will see their highest [prices] in three years.”

You might think that since you will mostly be at college and on campus all day, you will not be driving that much. But you might be surprised. Maybe you have a class that meets off-campus that you need to drive to, or one that goes on field trips that meet at a new, off-campus location each week. Maybe you are going to be living farther away from campus than you expected, or you will have to drive more because of a job or internship. There will always be surprises.

The AAA also estimates that fuel costs vary significantly by vehicle type, ranging from 3.68 cents per mile (electric vehicles) to 13.88 cents per mile (pickup trucks). New vehicle owners, on average, will spend just over 10 cents per mile – about $1,500 annually — to fuel their vehicles.

Another thing to consider is that if you do bring your car to campus, there will be plenty of fellow students and friends that will not have their cars there. This means that they will often use you to get around town and to bum rides off of. You might not realize it at first or mind right away, but you might mind more when you see how much you are paying for gas. You can try and hide the fact that you have a car for as long as possible, you can ask others for gas money when you give them rides, or you can learn to firmly but kindly say no when it does not suit you to drive them.

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Repairs

The last not so obvious expense you should consider before taking your car to college is any repair or maintenance your car might need while you are away at school. What if you need an oil change, your tires rotated, your brake pads replaced? These can be predicted and monitored so that they are not a surprise, but they can be hard to follow if you are not tracking them very carefully, which might be difficult for you on your busy, school schedule. You can still put aside money and budget for these things, but that does not make them any less expensive.

Now, what if you get a flat tire or your service engine light goes on? Those are not things that you can really predict. That makes it harder to budget for, right? And what if you get into an accident or have some other unexpected expense come up with your car? Cars can be delicate and unwieldy—your transmission could be shot or your radiator blown tomorrow, which makes it a bit of a risk to bring to college with you. Sometimes, mechanics in college towns will also price gouge you because they think college students are more gullible, unaware of the true cost of the issues of their cars and able to take advantage since the students depend on their cars.

According to AAA, who examined factory-recommended maintenance, replacement tires, extended warranty costs and services associated with typical wear-and-tear estimate that vehicles, on average, will cost a driver $1,186 per year to maintain and repair.

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