Students and Parents Have Different Ideas about Back-to-College Budgeting

It’s that time of year again for students and parents to plan back-to-college shopping. This is a joyous process, where both parties begin by agreeing on a budget.

The problem is, students and parents have different ideas about what the ideal budget should be.

How different? When professional services firm Deloitte conducted a survey, it found that parents expect to spend on average $1,345 for school necessities, while college students only plan to spend an average of $1,082.

Surprise, surprise – the students plan on being more frugal than the parents. Perhaps the parents are being more realistic?

Deloitte said that a majority (57%) of students expect to contribute over half of the back-to-school funds.

This is nice, but their parents don’t seem to believe them: only 16 percent of parents expect their students to contribute more than half of the funds.

Parents sound downright pessimistic on the subject, don’t they?