39+ Sample College Budgets

What is a College Budget?

A college budget is a clear and comprehensive spending plan or financial budget plan that allows students to manage their finances and have a perspective on how much they spend on their “needs” and “wants”. It is a fundamental money management tool to help students who are planning to attend college or the ones who are already enrolled to look ahead and assess their expenses carefully to avoid overspending, going into debt, or taking out additional loans. Preparing college budget plans is beneficial for students to become financially literate and to help them accomplish their goals and priorities. 

Usually, college students have different types of income and expenses such as total income, monthly income, fixed expenses, variable expenses, and emergency funds. Total income includes any money they have from their families or received from financial aid such as grants and loans and monthly income pertains to recurring funds that they earn each month from their jobs or obtain from other funding sources. Fixed expenses come from their monthly expenses with similar prices, while variable expenses come from their necessities or wants with varying costs. From tuition fees, apartment renting, or campus boarding costs to personal expenditures, college students consider their school and activity fees, transportation costs, books and supplies, and many others in their budget.

Examples of College Budgets

Consider your income or personal money, expenses, savings, debt payments, and assets while preparing different kinds of budgets including college budgets. Here are some common examples of college budgets used by students, educators, academic directors, college executives, school board committees, and college educational institution owners.

College Planning Budget: This type of college budget is used by different academic departments in college to develop their budget plans for their departments. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of the college president with the president’s Executive Council such as reviewing the base budget and budget restorations before the start of each budget development cycle, realigning the base budget during the initial budget review process, and approving or altering budget allocation recommendations. It explains the responsibilities of a department’s director as well. For example, the director of Buisness and Adminstration Services Department is in charge of planning and tracking processes in the institution such as the initial development of the business department annual budget, providing proper budget updates to Executive Council, and maintaining a three-year project financial plan to determine long-term consequences of college budget decisions. College Student Budget Worksheet: It is an all-inclusive budget worksheet for a college student to guide him or her in managing his or her finances each month, each semester, and each year. It demonstrates the income and expenses The income table displays the income received from work, from parents, scholarships, grants, student loans, from savings, and others, while the expenses table displays the expenses for tuition, housing or rent, books, supplies, utilities, internet/streaming subscriptions, computer/printing, cell phone, transportation, medical or dental, insurance, child care, groceries, eating out, clothing, entertainment, savings, and many others. College Event Budget: This budget covers general items necessary for setting up a college event. The items included for the expenses and production costs are artist fees, speaker fees, DJ fees, (with meals, travel, lodging, and Agent Commission), venue rental fees (off campus), lighting/sound/stage labor, equipment rental, food snacks, bartending or beverage services, decorations, costumes/props, advertising, and event giveaways. College Board Committee Budget: It provides sufficient budgeting details of a college board committee for the resource allocation of different board committees in a college institution. For example, if a certain college council and the budget committee of an educational institutions discuss for a potential merging, they yse a college board committee budget to elaborate the major goals of the merging such as integrating financial resource planning with institutional planning and systematically assessing the effective use of financial resources.

Tips on Budgeting in College

There are many useful ways that you can do to save money and spend it properly such as setting aside savings, creating an income source, using student discounts, and many others. Remember the tips below to help you budget and save money in college.

Track Your Spending and Manage Your Finances Using Budgeting Apps in Your Mobile Phone: You can easily track your spending and easily manage your finances while using effective budgeting and finance apps. If you want to be aware on the know-hows of budgeting, Goodbudget is a great app for you to start planning your spending using the envelope method, where you can allocate a particular amount of your income into categories such as groceries and rent. You are only supposed to spend what is in your envelope. If you go beyond the budget, your envelope will display red to inform you that you overspent. Categorize your expenses and manually create your envelopes and input your transactions. If you want to get started with investing, try Acorns as this app enables you to invest using minimum deposit and it spares change from yur daily purchases and invests it into preconfigured portfolios. For saving money, Digit is an app that connects to your bank account, and it saves small amount of money for you automatically each day. Specify a maximum amount you want it to save on any given day and it puts saving on autopilot so that you don’t need to transfer money manually into a separate account. If you want to track multiple accounts, use Mint as it enables you connect your checking account, savings account, credit cards, and investment accounts all under one app. Use Budget Calculators and Create Budget Spreadsheets: Understand your income and expenses while attending college while using budget calculators and creating budget spreadsheets. Search for top-rated budget calculators online and use them to get the most realistic budget in a breeze. Or you may choose some budget spreadsheet templates in the internet to help you stay organized and keep your college finances in check. Real Priorities First and Plan Ahead: Develop a budget plan for bigger and important expenses such as tuition and student fees, school supplies, housing costs, food, clothing, and gas/transportation. Start setting funds aside right now for future costs as well. Contemplate on Your Budget, Needs, Preferences, and Worth of the Item: Before spending, it is very important to check your impulses and contemplate on your current budget. Ask yourself: Do I need this item? Can I afford this product? Will I use it? Is it worth to buy? If you answer ‘NO’ to any of these questions, then you must not buy the item. Self-assessing helps you to prevent sudden buy-this-now impulses and to be knowledgeable on your financial condition.

How to Create a College Budget

Are you having a hard time making a clear and well-defined budget for college? Take note of the simple steps you need to do so that you can create a sensible college budget.

Step 1: Create a List of Your Income and Expenses

Document how much you earn or the money you have coming in (Ex. financial contributions from family members for your college expenses, financial aid from scholarships, grants, and student loans, and/or a part-time job or federal work-study job) and how much you are spending each week, month, semester, or year. Calculate your net income or the amount of money you earn or receive less taxes and list down your monthly expenses including dining, groceries, school supplies, ren or room and board, travel, household goods, phone, internet and monthly streaming subscriptions, transportation, loan payments, insurance, utilities, and miscellaneous while using income and expense worksheets.

Step 2: Categorize Your Expenses

Review your expenses and income over the past month and organize your expenses using a financial review checklist in a typical month and the average cost of each item. Categorize them as fixed expenses or variable expenses and tag everything as either a “need” or a “want”. Fixed expenses are bills you need to pay, while variable expenses are expenses with varying fees that often include wants.

Step 3: Analyze and Adjust If Necessary

Observe your net income and compare it with your monthly expenses. Analyze if you have sufficient money coming in each month to cover all your spending. If you notice that you are overspending beyond your financial limitation, you need to make some proper adjustments. Try to reduce the amount you spend on variable expenses and adjust some fixed expenses with fluctuating costs due to inflation while using food and grocery discount code coupons.

Step 4: Review and Finalize Your College Budget

After calculating, analyzing, and adjusting all the numbers, review your expenses once again to check what items you can cut from your list. Use a sample college budget template to finalize your budget for the month, semester, or year.

FAQs

What are the significant expenses for colleges and universities?

The significant expenses for colleges and universities are tuition fees, room and board, books and supplies, equipment, personal expenses, transportation costs, and school and activity fees.

What is the best budget rule to maximize your money?

The 50/30/20 budget is the highly-recommended budget rule by many financial experts to fully maximize your money. In this rule, you will spend 50% or half of your income on your necessities, 30% on your wants, and allot 20% to your savings and debt repayment if necessary.

What are some examples of college budgets?

Some examples of college budgets are college budget sheets, college student budgets, college planning budgets, college director budgets, college expenses budgets, college committee budgets, state college budgets, college event program budgets, college budget worksheets, college operating budgets, college board budget, college annual budget, and college budget planners.

How should a student plan for a budget?

Some ways to help you plan for a budget sensibly are making sure that you pay the right amount of income tax and not overpaying it on any jobs you do, contemplating before spending if you really need the item, afford it, use it, and check if it is worthy to buy, saving money on your regular spends, avoiding cash machines that charge you with fees for checking your account and withdrawals, planning your meals for the week ahead, and preparing your cash money for the week ahead. Also, get a part-time job to boost your income, and grab the best student deals to save money. 

Why budgeting is essential for college students?

Budgeting is essential for college students because it allows them to set goals and make important logical decisions as they consider their short-, medium-, and long-term goals and monitor their progress toward reaching them.

Preparing a cohesive and reasonable college budget is like building a comprehensive spending plan for college as you need to take into account your daily, weekly, monthly, and annual expenses and work hard on how to use your finances efficiently, ensuring that you save and spend your money wisely. Follow the aforementioned tips in this article on budgeting for college and the steps in creating a simple college budget. We have sample budget templates that you can easily use for your budgeting such as annual budget templates and school budget templates.