I've always deeply resented this "personal expenses" cost being lumped into tuition prices. Yeah, living and existing as a human being for a year costs about that much, whether you are going to college or not. It makes no sense whatsoever how that got conflated. And that's exactly how a huge portion of our entire generation got to enjoy a four year free for all party sabbatical in the prime of their lives, as the rest of us struggled at entry level jobs through global recessions, for which they now want forgiven on the backs of taxpayers.
It's not that uncommon for a university to require you live on-campus the first couple of years unless you live locally. On top of this, it's not uncommon for universities to mandate on-campus students pay for meal-plans and a lot of other potentially unnecessary garbage.
