Zachary Johnson

Mrs. Barth
English 12/Period 1
03 Sept 2016

NAU Bound
The beautiful pine trees, the crisp blue skies and the majestic San Francisco
Peaks are just some of the reason why I want to attend Northern Arizona University.
Additionally, NAU is a great school and is highly regarded as a great educational
institution. One of the nicest things about NAU is you get the great education of an
university but it is not as big as the other universities in Arizona, so you get that
small school feel. Of course, also important to me, is the football team and NAU has
a good one for their division size.
NAU has a variety of housing opportunities. You can either live on campus in
a dorm, live at a fraternity, or if you have a family, there is also family housing
available. Additionally, there are houses or apartments off campus that are close
enough to make it easily accessible to campus.
On campus housing opportunities are freshman dorms, upper division halls
which are like small apartments and also family housing is available. The Arizona
Board of Regents set the rates every year. For the 2016-2017 year, the freshman
dorms and the upper division halls are about $5,300 a year. The family housing is
about $955/month. These prices do not include meals, so I addition, a food plan has
to be purchased. The unlimited meal plan is $2,300/yr. In addition, if you have a
car, you going to need to park it. Parking passes must also be purchased. The
prices werent readily available. Here are some examples of some of the residence
halls:

http://nau.edu/Residence-Life/Housing-Options/Residence-Halls/
Off campus housing opportunities are also available. There are
apartments close to campus. Some of the amenities are on the bus route, close to

shopping, pet friendly, on-site security, bike storage, cable, high speed internet,
private bathrooms, walk-in closets, in unit washer and dryers, in unit dishwashers,
solar and interior hallways. The prices for a two bedroom apartment are about
$1800 to $2000/month. Utilities are included in some cases. When you apply for
the apartment, there is a $60 application fee. At some apartments, you sign a lease
for the apartment instead of as an individual which means that if you have a
roommate and they dont pay the rent, you are responsible. Some allow you to sign
the lease as an individual which means you are not responsible for your roommates
rent if they dont pay. The apartments range in size from 700-850 square feet.
Some come fully furnished which is great when you dont have your own furniture.
Below is a floorplan for an apartment at http://gogrove.com/flagstaff/

Determining on if you want to live on campus or off campus should be done

by figuring out which option meets your needs and is affordable for you and your
family. In order to do that, it is best to lay out your options and the costs and then
determine which option is best. Below is the budget between on campus housing
and an offsite apartment.

Housing Expenses for 12

months
Rent (1 roommate)
Electricity
Meals
Total

On
Apartme
Campus nt
5,300.0
10,800.
0
00
2,300.0
0
7,600.0
0

2,500.0
0
13,300.
00

Housing Cost Comparison

On Campus
Apartment

In the example above, on campus housing is about 1/3 the cost of an offsite
apartment. The apartment cost even when splitting with a roommate, is still not
comparable to living on campus. The nice thing about staying on campus is it is
easy to get around and everything you need is available to you. The disadvantages
are some of the amenities you would have available to you at the apartment, such
as having your pet with you, swimming pool, cable, etc. So the decision really
comes down to can you afford those extra amenities, or is cost a bigger decision
point than is the amenities. In my case, I would be selecting the on campus option
as the financial cost is more important than the amenities.

Costs of college are very expensive especially when you are looking at a
college that is not where your parents live. NAU is about 2 hours north of where my
family lives, so I would require room and board in addition to the cost of the classes.
Based on the information above, to keep the cost more affordable, on campus
housing would be the only choice.
In addition to the cost of room and board, there are other costs of going to
college. Some of those costs are tuition and fees, books and supplies, parking, etc.
While some of the costs you occur as a student are the same whether you stay at
home to go to college or sometimes they cost more in one location than another.
Since Flagstaff is up north, sometimes the costs are higher, so eating out, and some
personal expenses might cost more than they would in Phoenix.
In order to have income for college, I would need to earn it or save money
given to me. Even though I work a job, I have to be diligent about saving some of
my money from each paycheck and put it away. I make minimum wage at my
current job, about $8.05/hour and because I go to school and play sports, I can only
work about 20 hours a week. Once football is over, I can work more hours as long
as I keep my grades up. I will get an increase to a little over $9/hour once I have
been their three months. This will help my paycheck. I can also save money when I
receive them for my birthday or holidays. My parents have also set up a 529
educational fund for me and that will help with some of my college funds, but wont
cover everything. Additionally, my parents bought savings bonds to help with
college.
As you can see from the information and graph below, it is important to
understand exactly what your expenses might be so you can be properly prepared
for how much college costs. It is also important to understand how much money
you have to earn or get to cover college. Even if you are good at savings, as you
can see, sometimes your expenses will be more than the amount of money you
have for college.

Estimated Budget for 20172018

Expenses
Item
Tuition Fee's

Amount
10,200.00

Income
Item
Job

Books/Supplies

1,000.00

Parents

Room/Board
Car/Transportation

7,600.00
1,500.00

Gifts
Student Loans

Amount
9,360.0
0
3,000.0
0
3,000.0
0
5,000.0

Cell Phone
Entertainment
Personal Expenses
Total

1,200.00
2,000.00
500.00
24,000.00

Financial Aid

0
1,500.0
0

Total

21,860
.00

Estimated Expenses/Income 2017-2018

24,000.00

21,860.00

Expenses

Income

There can be a few thousand dollars difference between the expenses and
income, especially when you have a minimum wage job and if you are not
extremely diligent about saving your money. It is important to understand how
much college costs early in your high school career so you can start saving early. If
you wait until your last year of high school, it will be very hard to have enough
money for your entire four years in college. In order to make up the difference in
costs, I will have to either take less credits each year and go longer or I will need to
work additional hours at work to make up that difference. Some individuals also
take out more in student loans, but if you do that each year, you could end up with
so much debt, you might not be able to pay it off for a very long time and that
makes it hard to get off to a good start after graduation. I think it would be better
to take longer to get the degree and not have so much debt.
In conclusion, college is very expensive, but yet is very important to my
future. In order to achieve a degree, it is very important that I save my money all
during my senior year. It is also important that I apply for financial aid as well as
any scholarships I would be eligible for. I will also be working while going to college
to continue to earn money for college. Hopefully the job I have will still allow me to
enjoy the beautiful pine trees, crisp blue skies and the wonderful San Francisco
Peaks.

Works Cited

NAU Tuition and Fees Northern Arizona University

http://nau.edu/SDAS/Tuition-Fees/Spring_Tuition/Spring_Resident_Pledge/
Accessed 03 Sept 2016
NAU Meal Plans Northern Arizona University
http://nau.edu/About/Life/Housing-and-Dining/ Accessed 03 Sept. 2016
Off Campus Apartments for NAU Students
http://gogrove.com/flagstaff/ Accessed 03 Sept. 2016
Apartments in Flagstaff Guide
http://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/Arizona/Flagstaff/2-beds1z141y8/ Accessed 03 Sept 2016