Breaks and far-off colleges

Parents Forum
1

In my continuing low tuition/merit aid search, I’ve run across some interesting colleges that are very far away, inconveniently located from where we are, or simply…in the boondocks. (I like rural, no judgment intended.) And now I’m very curious how other families have managed breaks, especially the shorter ones.

With my oldest, I always dreaded the 100 mile trip that passed through a major metropolitan area to get her for those short breaks. Compared to the colleges I’m looking at now, that was really baby stuff.

Would anyone mind describing their experiences and even the costs involved to get a child back and forth between home and a distant college, at the best of times and when there was bad weather, etc.?

2

We spent many thousands a year flying our student home for breaks from the midwest to east coast. Driving up and back was a 2-3 day affair with hotel stays, meals out, missed work, etc so not cheaper. You need to include this in your budget. Thanksgiving can be especially expensive. Connecting flights in the winter are unpredictable and so sometimes it is better to pay more for longer more realistic connections or direct flights.

3

My youngest is in school across the country. The only break she comes home for is winter. She flies home on Southwest which often has reasonable rates because she is not flying during the busiest holiday times. Has not had any weather related issues thankfully. She and 7 other students shared a super shuttle to LAX to come home, as it was cheaper to fly out of the bigger airport than the one closest to campus. I think her flight cost me about $134 one way, non-stop. It was a little more sending her back. (My other 2 kids were about a 4 hour drive to get for breaks, which we were able to carpool with others, but costs of gas and tolls adds up too).

Thanksgiving is just too short for a cross country flight. Her college has many students who stay, and some of the professors have dinner in their homes for students. My D has gone on trips with the school outings group for Thanksgiving, and has gone home with friends who are closer to the campus some years. Spring break she has also traveled with the outings club. Two years she played a spring sport and had practice/games. One year I went to visit her over spring break.

For summer, she and some friends share a pod to store their things. They are brought to campus, the students load them up, then the company takes them away to store. Then she flies home with her 2 free checked bags (last summer she worked in California though). She and 2 co-workers shared an airbnb for the summer.

4

Our daughter is only 500 miles away, but it’s hard to get from our home in southern Maine to her school in rural Pennsylvania! I planned on her taking the bus home at Christmas break, but it would have taken about 15 hours, with stops in Philadephia, New York City, and Boston! I ended up asking my dad for some of his airline points to fly her home, out of Harrisburg. I told her we can’t do that every year, though! Sometimes she can get rides with other students, but not always.

It’s an 8-hour drive each way, if we take no breaks. What we do is leave Portland at 3 am in order to beat all the east coast traffic. We stop around 8 am for breakfast, and get to her school about noon. I guess we’ll be making that trip more often if she can’t find rides.

5

My school was 675 miles away from home and it was just about a 10 hour drive. My Freshman year I came home for Fall break, Christmas Break and Spring Break. Thanksgiving, I stayed in town and actually went with a friend to his aunts house who lived about 30 minutes from the campus. As the years went on I tended to stay in town rather than make the drive back and forth home. Christmas break and Spring Break were the only times I always went home.

I did live in a Fraternity house my Sophomore and Junior years, and had an apartment my Senior year so housing wasn’t really and issue for me. There were always a few guy’s around so it wasn’t like I was by myself. There was always plenty to do.

Upon graduating, I actually moved even further away from home.

6

We had one kid who went to college in a very urban area 3000 miles from our house. Part of the discussion was that she would NOT be able to come home for all of the school breaks…including Thanksgiving, and spring break.

She wasn’t in the boondocks…at all. But airfares were $200 round trip when she was a freshman and over $400 by the time she was a senior.

7

Spending short breaks on campus or with local friends is what some of my kids did. Others had a car and drove home (about 8 hours). I’m glad kid #5 has chosen a closer school (less than 2hrs drive) . TBH, the transportation issue has been an expense and a worry, and I’m glad to have a break from it. For one kid, getting to the airport cost almost as much as his ticket home!

8

I have two kids at distant (1000 mi+) colleges. One can take public transport to the airport, the other can’t, but hasn’t had trouble getting rides with friends, even that first semester. We fly them both home for Christmas break and spring break, not Thanksgiving (too much trouble and very expensive. That first thanksgiving away is tough on the kids. One has family nearby and goes there. It hasn’t been a big deal. The other just spent her first thanksgiving away. No family near, went home with roommate and was welcomed there but really miserable and missed home terribly. We regretted not flying her home, even though it had worked fine with the older kid. Not sure what we will do with her next year.

I just recently booked their spring break tickets home. They cost much more than other times of year–two kids, combined cost over $1100 on Southwest, just for spring break, and I’d been watching ticket prices for a while. Summers and Christmas these tickets would be more like $600 max. We have a Southwest credit card and use points for some of the flights.

The other thing to consider is what to do with dorm stuff over summers. One has stored it with local roommates. There are other options besides bringing it all home every time, but they aren’t free or always logistically simple, and it’s hard to plan ahead as much as I would prefer.

9

Storing stuff over the summer for the far away kid was THE best bonus. Kid rented a storage unit and stored the stuff there. It was FAR better than the kid who was 2 hours away…where we schlepped the stuff home every summer…and it sat in our LR all summer so we could schlep it back come fall.

Oh…and that kid took less and less back each year…which meant we had to get rid of, or store what he left behind too, hated that!!

Anyway…back to travel. We had one kid in an urban are bout 2 hours from home. We did the drive to pick him up a couple of times freshman year. That wasn’t much fun either. So after that…he took the bus. It was inexpensive…and worked just fine.

No matter where your kid goes to college (unless it’s a short distance to your house), there will be travel challenges from time to time.

10

Interesting, as S2 will either be 15 miles away or 2000. We are hoping to unload him on unsuspecting acquaintances or let him hang out with the internationals during the shorter breaks.

11

Kid 1 is 10 hours away by car. Year 1 we did a combo: Dropped her off with all her stuff in August, Megabus home for Thanksgiving (dirt cheap, like $15, but that meant 15 hours on the bus and I still had to drive 2+ hours to get her in D.C.); grandparents (who are retired) drove her back as part of a road trip/mini-vacation. Christmas and Spring Break were flights both ways using a combo of airports. Flights averaged approx. $100 each way (she had to be flexible–meaning a flight home earlier or later than desired–and I bought in advance) and of course that meant someone picking her up/dropping her off at the airport (45 minutes or 1-1/4 hours, depending which one we use). Picked her (and her stuff) up in May. That was actually fun as I drove down alone, stayed overnight, and then it was just the two of us on the ride back home (more fun gossip than if her dad and/or brother had been along for the ride).

Year 2: she flew back and forth for Thanksgiving (about $115 each way) but got rides back and forth at Winter Break. I gave her $100 to chip in for gas/tolls (so $50 in each direction). More friends with cars made finding rides easier this year, as last year none of her friends from up north had a car at school, but three do this year. Next year she will have a car, but I don’t know if she’ll drive back and forth at Thanksgiving or not–depends on when she can leave (class schedule, is anyone cancelling their class that week, etc.).

Kid #2 will be 5 - 9 hours away (still deciding). The 5 hour school would be fairly simple logistically (big city to big city with plenty of reasonably priced bus service and probably more rideshare options); 7 hour school is remote and would entail driving or some combo of 1 hour+ bus ride from school to big city, then bus or flight home; 9 hour school would be flights except for drop-off and pickup. We’re just estimating the cost as best we can based on current routes and rolling that into our own cost of attendance calculations.

Re weather: Kid #1 goes to school in SC, so little concern. She did have to head back a day early in January to avoid a predicted snowstorm; but since they were driving, that was an easy change of plans. Just lucky that we haven’t had snow problems on our end (Philadelphia suburbs). Kid #2 will be Ohio or western PA so we will just have to hope for the best.

Sometimes the smaller airports can be more affordable than the larger ones (e.g., Harrisburg vs. Philadelphia) depending on which airlines use them, so a little research and/or extra driving by mom or dad can save quite a bit of money.

Thinking back, no matter how annoying it might have been trying to schedule flights, pickups, etc. without paying a fortune, my excitement over seeing Kid #1 eclipsed that almost immediately. I expect I will be worse with Kid #2, meaning I will probably be pretty flexible about cost and personal inconvenience if it means getting him home sooner/longer. I don’t even mind the long drives for drop-off and pickup, as we do the 10 hours in one day, stay overnight, and then return trip in one day. Fortunately H and I have fairly flexible work schedules and just the two kids, which helps.

12

When I was a student, I only flew home for summers–the rest of the time I hung out with campus friends or we went camping or visited other loved ones. My kids flew home for summers and Christmas break. The other breaks, they hung out with family friends or campus friends.

13

D goes to a college 2,000 miles away. For her short fall break, she went home with a local-ish friend. She has an entire week off for Thanksgiving and got a surprise gift just as she was ready to leave last fall that she chose to use for coming home for Thanksgiving. We got a great deal with Alaska, plus we got points for using our Alaska CC. For spring break we’re using some of those points, but I’m willing to bet this will be her last one home. We’ve flown her entirely with Alaska so far-Southwest has been more expensive by a wide margin, even accounting for the two free bags. But those points and the practically free companion fare we get each year makes it worth it anyway. For getting to the airport, she has had friends with cars drive her or taken Uber. A friend of mine also once gave her a ride.

For storage, there’s a place walking distance from the school, and we were all set to rent a small unit-cheaper than paying for extra bags on the flight-but my friend has offered to let her store her things at her home.

It’s an added cost for sure when you send them far away, and getting to and from the airport if that’s how they’ll travel is also a consideration. I have one niece who went an 8-hour drive away and her parents bought her a used but reliable car and she drove both ways all 4 years for all of her breaks. But she’s a good, cautious driver and likes driving. Not all kids would want that kind of responsibility or feel comfortable doing that.

14

My freshman daughter is a 25 hour drive/4 hour flight away, about 75 minutes from a major airport. The whole family flew out to move her in. She flew home for Thanksgiving (weeklong break), Winter break (four weeks), and has a ticket for spring break (one way was free with points, I got her return flight for $114). She has used a $40 shuttle ride or sometimes rides with friends to get to and from the airport.

The biggest hassle might be the end of semester move-out of the dorm, depending on her finals schedule. Her dorm closes at 10:00 p.m. on the last day of finals. She’s found an apartment to move into in August, but she needs to find the time and space to store her stuff while studying for finals, and might have more stuff to bring home than she can realistically fly with by herself. One of us might end up spending a few days out there at the end of the spring semester.

15

Our son went to high school and now college about 2,500 miles from home. We have paid airfare for his trips to/from school for all breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break) as well as to and from school at start/end of school year to the tune of several thousand dollars a year, but we used points for some trips where we could.

Both his high school and his college provide bus/van transpo to/from airports and make accommodations for flights that are cancelled at the school end due to bad weather (extended dorm stay until weather clears/flight rescheduled). Fortunately, he has not been stranded during a layover, but he has a credit card tied to ours and is free to use it for taxis/hotels if he needs to. He has been making his own travel arrangements since high school, so he is comfortable taking care of himself and making decisions en route. (Thank you, Southwest, for treating our teenage unaccompanied minor like an adult and enabling him to handle all aspects of his travel without any need for our involvement.) He often uses Uber, too, to get to/from airports and hotels when he is traveling outside the scheduled school transpo.

As for summer storage mentioned above, during high school, our son used All Campus Storage which stored his dorm belongings over the summer and delivered them to his new room the following year. Pricing was by the box. The company provided the boxes, packing material, tape, and labels. All he had to do was pack up and leave the boxes in his room so ACS could pick them up and take them to storage. When he arrived at his new room the following year, the boxes were already there ready to unpack. He never had an issue. I know there are several companies that provide this service for college students although our son no longer needs it as he is able to store his dorm (barracks) stuff in the trunk room on his campus over the summer.

As for shorter breaks, our son always came home, but there was the option to go home with friends who live/d close to the school. We thought that this past Thanksgiving would be the first time he missed coming home for break (and we were very sad), but things changed and he was able to come home. We know, though, that the time is coming when we will see him less and less. That’s just the way it is when kids begin to forge their adult lives.

So, @MACmiracle, don’t stress too much about travel logistics. You will probably be very involved those first few trips but, once your child has navigated the trip a few times, it will become routine. It all works out. :slight_smile:

ETA: Neither our son’s high school nor his college allow students to remain on campus over breaks, so some form of arrangement has to be made. Both schools have services set up to help students with these arrangements if necessary.

16

The college wasn’t what I’d call rural, but off the usual beaten path. Kids could bus to the local larger airport, about an hour, but generally not cheap to fly from. They could take a longer ride to the closest major city (probably 2.5 hours,) then cab to that airport, but a hassle.

If your child is sociable, there may be no problem staying for short breaks. Or a friend may invite him/her home. Or closest friends might all elect to stay, during some breaks. But imo, you do want to vet for the social or cultural climate at the college. If it’s the sort where the kids don’t mix and match so easily or many are very into their own work, it can be harder. Or, some schools have much more going on during breaks (club trips, movies, a common dinner, etc,) than others. At some, you’d really be left on your own, dining may shut down, and local options are next to nil.

We were the family that loaded the car with their friends. Some would stay with us, some we’d get to the airport or train, the next day, to make their trip home easier.

17

My step daughter for the really short one often now goes to the home of a more local college friend – the travel is just too much and not worth it.

18

Oh and also, my senior in HS will be going rather far (a flight) but she will have to remain at college for many breaks and weekends anyway because of Lacrosse.

19

DD2 went about 2600 miles to the east coast. Her campus was in a more rural area. We found that the local, very small airport was VERY expensive to use. Her flight from there to Philly or NY cost as much as her remaining flight to CA. She would either use the MegaBus to get to a major airport or sometimes catch a ride with a friend. Due to the amount of time it took to get home, her trips were limited. She always came home for winter break but only once or twice for spring. She stayed at school or went with friends for Thanksgiving. The other issue when traveling that far in the winter is that delays happen frequently. She always went back to school a day earlier than needed in case she got stuck somewhere, which did happen a few times. It is just one more delay to throw in the mix.

20

Very similar to @mamabear1234. DD2 was 2000 miles away on the West Coast. She came home for summer and winter breaks (we provided the airline ticket). The rest of the time she found friends/profs to hang with if the college was closed.