Typically, while attending college, a student cannot work full time or save any money. Some hidden expenses of attending college are the "lost wages" that could have been earned if the student entered the workforce right out of high school. Choose a full-time job a student might go in to right out of high school. 1) Estimate the total amount of "lost wages" for four years. 2) Combine the expense of tuition you calculated last week with the lost wages to find the total cost of a college education