Cost of Attendance (COA)

Definition: Cost of Attendance (COA) is the total cost of attending a college for a period of one year.

COA is not Direct Cost - Direct Costs are the charges that actually appear on the student account.  Continue reading to learn more about Southwestern's published COA.

Required Elements of Cost of Attendance

Tuition and Fees Books, Course Materials, Supplies and Equipment Living Expenses Miscellaneous Personal Expenses Transportation Other Allowed Expenses How to Estimate the Cost to Attend (Net Cost)

Published Cost of Attendance
Cost of Attendance budgets for the upcoming school year are updated and published in late January or early February each year.  This website is updated with the new costs and the current cost of attendance numbers are archived for one full year.

• 2023-2024 Cost of Attendance Budget
• 2024-2025 Cost of Attendance Budget

Tuition and Fees 2024-2025
Southwestern uses actual, full-time tuition for all undergraduate programs and a weighted, full-time average for graduate programs. 

Tuition is charged as a flat rate for the residential campus undergraduate program.  The flat rate includes schedules of 12 - 18 credit hours.  All other programs charge per credit hour.  Students attending the residential campus who enroll in less than 12 credit hours are charged by the credit hour.

A full list of tuition charges is located on the Billing/Student Accounts website.

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Books, Course Materials, Supplies, and Equipment 2024-2025
Every three years the Office of Financial Aid conducts research of the amounts charged for books through the Southwestern College bookstore.  The office uses this data to create the books, course materials, supplies and equipment budget.

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Living Expenses 2024-2025
The living expense budget contains two elements - food and housing.  These elements are located in the cost of attendance regardless of whether or not the student is living on or off campus.

Housing:
For on campus residents, colleges are required to calculate a weighted total cost of all housing options on campus and then use the average cost or median cost - whichever is higher.

For off campus residents, Southwestern College uses Living Expense Budgets crafted by The College Board.  This secondary research is based on data from the most recent years' Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) which is produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Low and moderate budgets are developed for regions throughout the United States.  Southwestern uses the amounts for the Oklahoma City region.  The low budget is used for students who are dependent of their parents.  The moderate budget is used for independent students.

Food:
Colleges are required to craft budgets to ensure costs are included for 3 meals per day, 7 days a week.

For on campus residents, the 17 meal plan cost is used as a foundation.  For the remaining 4 meals, an amount is derived using the USDA Food Plans for males and females aged 19-50.

For off campus residents, the USDA Food Plans described above are used exclusively to create the budget.

Actual Food and Housing costs for the residential campus are located on the Billing/Student Accounts website.

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Miscellaneous Personal Expenses 2024-2025
The Miscellaneous category is intended to provide a reasonable budget for items such as clothing, personal maintenance, grooming aids and recreation.  The allowance is designed to permit the student a moderate standard of living while attending college.

Southwestern consults the Living Expense Budget resource from The College Board for this number.  (See living expenses for a full explanation of this research.) The low budget is used for students who are dependent of their parents and the moderate budget is used for independent students.

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Transportation 2024-2025
A transportation allowance is included to account for a student's travel expenses to and from school and to and from class.  It is intended to be a reasonable cost for gas and maintenance on a previously owned vehicle or any kind of public transportation used to travel to college.  

Southwestern uses The College Board's Living Expense budget for this number.  (See the living expenses for a full explanation of this secondary research.)  The low budget is used for students who are dependent of their parents and the moderate budget is used for independent students.

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Other Allowed Expenses 2024-2025
The Department of Education also provides several optional components to a person's individual cost of attendance.  These are considered on request.

Personal Computer:
Students enrolled full-time in the residential program are provided with a computer to use for their term at Southwestern as part of their tuition.  All other students may request a one-time increase to their cost of attendance for the purchase of a personal computer up to $1,000 upon submission of a receipt of sale.

Dependent Care Expenses:
For a student with one or more dependents, the cost of attendance allowance can be increased for actual dependent care expenses if it is necessary for the student to place the children in care in order to go to school.  Students may request an increase for dependent expenses by providing documentation of the expense which can include invoices paid to a child care provider.

Disability Related Allowance:
On request, students may request to have their cost of attendance allowance increased for expenses related to a student's disability by providing documentation of the disability and the related expense.

Study Abroad Expenses:
When students plan on studying abroad, Southwestern College will increase the cost of attendance to include additional expenses related to the study abroad experience.  The form for capturing these expenses and for approving the student abroad experience can be found on the Builder's Abroad website.

Cost of First Professional Credential:
For students entering the teaching profession, the one-time cost of obtaining the first professional credential in the field can be included in the cost of attendance by request.  This allowance is an average based on cost information obtained from the Chair of the Education Department at Southwestern College.

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Estimating the Cost to Attend (Net Price)
Net price is the budgeted amount remaining after scholarships and grants have been subtracted from the total Cost of Attendance (COA).  Calculating net cost is easy. 

1. Write down the costs discussed above that apply and add them together to get a total for one semester,
2. Multiply the total by the number of semesters you intend to enroll, and then
3. Find your financial aid offer and subtract from the cost of attendance (COA) the total of the scholarships and grants you have been offered.

Use this formula:

Most people are more interested in what their account balance will be than their net price to attend.  Your financial aid offer has a worksheet to help you estimate your account balance.  You will use actual, not budgeted costs to arrive at that number.  The more popular actual costs are listed for you on the offer.

To calculate actual cost, use this formula: 

Still having trouble?  Contact the Office of Financial Aid to receive a detailed estimate of direct costs minus financial aid.  The Federal Net Price Calculator will give you a rough idea of cost using COA in its calculations as opposed to direct costs.

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