¿Cuánto te cuesta la matrícula este semestre?

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Breakdown of ¿Cuánto te cuesta la matrícula este semestre?

• te: you
• este: this
• el semestre: the semester

Questions & Answers about ¿Cuánto te cuesta la matrícula este semestre?

Why is there a te in ¿Cuánto te cuesta…? What does it mean grammatically?

Te is an indirect object pronoun meaning to you / for you.
In Spanish, costar often works like: Something costs (to someone) X.
So structurally it’s: [La matrícula] (subject) + [te] (to you) + [cuesta] (costs).

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Why is it cuesta (singular) and not cuestan?

Because the grammatical subject is la matrícula (singular), so the verb agrees with it: la matrícula cuesta.
You’d use cuestan if the subject were plural, e.g. Las matrículas cuestan mucho.

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What is the base verb here, and is it irregular?

The verb is costar (to cost). It’s a stem-changing verb: o → ue in most present tense forms:

• cuesta, cuestan
• cuesto, cuestas, cuestan (etc.)

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Why is it ¿Cuánto…? with an accent, but sometimes I see cuanto without one?