Answers

There are many costs associated with college, and financial aid departments will usually take into account a lot of them. Most schools give an Estimated Total Cost for attendance at the school, and they usually explain what this entails.

For example, I'm applying to the University of Chicago. On their website it gives the total estimated cost, and then tells how much you can expect to pay for tuition, activities fee, health service fee, room and board, and books and personal expenses. This means that each of these costs is taken into account when they create a financial aid package for me. Tuition is certainly not the only thing they offer to cover.

It's a little unclear how, exactly, financial aid can cover personal expenses not charged by the college or university itself, so here's a little explanation. Financial aid on things like tuition and room and board, which are assessed directly by the institution, are just taken as discounts on the bill they send you. If you get a lot of aid, and your tuition and room and board are completely covered, you can get an additional bit of financial aid meant to cover books and travel. This kind of aid is usually just made out to you in the form of a check, which you can deposit and use like money. You won't get this kind of check unless your financial aid package covers every expense billed by the institution, though.

Some of the schools I'm applying to don't include the indirect expenses like books and travel in their financial aid packages. All of them include room and board though, because that is something that is paid directly to the school.

I'm pretty sure every school also includes room and board when they consider your financial aid application. Most schools will consider books, travel, or other expenses as well, although this varies. Sometimes schools will just lump things like this under the term "expenses" and account for them that way. Room and board is often such a big expense that it has to be considered. Sometimes it's even close to the price of tuition.