<p>Back in my day, a personal vehicle during freshman year was pretty much frowned on, or simply not allowed at many colleges. Is that sentiment still true today? Or does our entitled generation of kids mean more cars are going to college with our kids?</p>
<p>No place to park here, so no cars allowed. As well, as soon as S gets his license, our car insurance will shoot up.</p>
<p>In my day, the priviledged had their cars, in spite of the rules. Today, I suspect it is the same, but priviledge is more widespread?</p>
<p>So much depends on the college. Colgate? better have a car or you'll go crazy. Columbia? Where to park? And, some huge state U's have storage lots, far enough away to be inconvenient.</p>
<p>At Kenyon upperclassmen are allowed to have cars and receive parking near their dorms. Freshman are discouraged from bringing cars, and the college shows this by putting them in a lot a 10-15 minute walk from freshman dorms. </p>
<p>I still know many friends whose parents wouldn't let them take the car first semester for fear that their child would only make friends using them for the car.</p>
<p>I don't have a car, but most of my friends on campus do. At a rural place like Kenyon, it's nice to be able to get away whenever you want...</p>
<p>Depends on the school. My S has found it very useful at Pomona for trips to the beach, Costco etc. My D is waiting as San Diego traffic will take some getting used to first. There are always plenty of folks with cars to get rides from anyways</p>
<p>Berkeley has no parking. S has no car. That made it easy. Plus the rapid transit station is a block away and for $5 he can go to San Francisco round trip. I expect he'll need several pairs of walking shoes before the year is up, but it beats gas money! :)</p>
<p>Those parents whose kids have not taken cars to campus, how did you handle the insurance? Did you drop them off your policy and reinstate them for summer time? Or did the insurance company lower your rate because they wouldn't be taking a vehicle to college but still keep them on the policy? Our insurance company, USAA, is trying to convince us to do the latter, but I wonder what other parents decided and what is most cost effective/practical.</p>
<p>My parents wouldn't let me take my car first semester freshman year - they wanted me to get used to being at college and not be driving around everywhere. So I refused to pay my car insurance for that semester - if I wasn't driving my car, i wasn't paying my insurance.. so they happily paid it for that time period. Freshman at my school were parked over on west campus - about two or so blocks from main campus... about a 10 minute walk. Not too bad considering my apartment was on west campus, on the other side of the freshman parking lot.</p>
<p>We told our sons that neither would be taking a car to campus freshman year, regardless of what the colleges allowed. So that took the question of whether freshmen were allowed cars or not out of the equation (just in case somebody might be thinking about choosing his college based in part on that). </p>
<p>We told them they would have plenty to do their first year getting acclimated to college life, getting involved on campus, making friends, and studying (oh yeah, that). Then, as long as they maintained a B average, they could have a car the next three years. </p>
<p>We did offer them an opportunity to get around the rule: they could live at home and attend community college. Then they could have a car freshman year. LOL. Suddenly having a car didn't seem all that important.</p>
<p>It really depends on the college. My daugher is applying mostly to east coast urban colleges (NY, Boston, DC area). If she goes to any of those, she will not take the car. (And in answer to the insurance question, I will drop her from the insurance for the period she is away). She is also applying to 3 UC campuses - these are financial safeties, if not necessarily safeties in terms of admission. If she get into Berkeley, which is about 40 minutes away, she will not have the car with her, but I assume will continue to drive it occasionally -- she'll just have to come home to get it if she needs to use it for any reason. If she ends up at either UC Santa Cruz or Santa Barbara, then I'll let her take the car, assuming adequate parking is available on campus.</p>
<p>momof2inca - From another thread a while back, I copied this, which was from a poster who said she was advised to drop her kid from the policy, but kid can still use family cars occasionally when home on vacation. Close friend is our agent (and also has a DS off to college this fall). I've been meaning to check with him and will do so soon, to see if he agrees:
[quote]
--Re: Policy Number ########</p>
<p>Dear Sirs:</p>
<p>This will confirm a discussion with your representative over the phone today and changes made to the above policy based on that discussion.</p>
<p>My son [name] was deleted as a named driver and household resident, for the reason that he is a full-time college student at the University of _____________ in [far away Big Town, USA], lives on campus in [Big Town] and does not have regular access to any vehicle on this policy. All vehicles on this policy are located in [town where I live]. Your representative advised that in the event [S] were to visit occasionally, such as on a weekend or spring break vacation, and use one of the vehicles with our permission, he would be covered for liability as a person using the vehicle with our permission.</p>
<p>Please do not hesitate to contact me if further discussion is required.--</p>
<p>Deleting S reduced my premium about $3000 per year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There never seems to be enough parking space at schools in urban or suburban areas and what is available is super expensive. Residential students probably don't need a car unless they really plan to use it during the school year.</p>
<p>And considering how much emphasis there seems to be on drinking during freshman year, I wouldn't want students driving!</p>
<p>I have another car insurance-related questioned. My son will be a senior in college this year (in California) and we live in Pennsylvania. He may buy a used car with his summer earnings when he goes back to school. How would insurance be handled in this case? I assume the car (purchased in California) would be registered in California. Could it go under our insurance? Can someone 21 years old get their own insurance? A friend of mine told me his son who is a grad student a Penn State could not get his own insurance at age 24. Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks.</p>
<p>Our policy has been, NO Car Freshman Year. My two older kids went to in-state public universities and had to park at football stadium parking lot (long way from housing). On days of home games, cars had to be moved. My rising senior will not take his car Freshman year either.</p>
<p>I said No car freshman year for D, but by October she was asking to take her car. She is at Rice, and it is a good place to have a car, and it simplified her trips back and forth on holidays. We let her take the car back, and it has worked out well for two years.</p>
<p>not needing a car for transportation and all the hassle that entails was a criteria that we used when looking @ colleges.
D decided on a school in a city with fairly good public transportation. While there is some parking - there isn't a lot. She does have friends with cars- and a bike so she gets along fairly well.</p>
<p>Her cousins at Colgate didn't have a car either- I imagine they pretty much stayed on campus or befreinded students with cars/used the shuttle to town)</p>
<p>Both our kids had the "no car freshman year no matter what the college says" rule imposed on them. Agree with above poster--we didn't want the car issue to have any influence over the college selected.</p>
<p>For D, now a rising sophomore, a car is very welcome on her urban
Texas campus---at $200 a year for parking fees. (Actually, costs less than it did to park at her public high school!) </p>
<p>For S, going to an urban school also with decent public transportation, it doesn't seem to be an issue. At least not yet. </p>
<p>In our case, insurance-wise, we couldn't completely drop them from the policies unless they would not be driving at all, even during their breaks home. So we get a significantly reduced rate, but they are still "covered". Even if they drive someone else's car. To my dismay,
I found out after the fact that D had driving her boyfriend's on several occasions. Good thing she WAS covered.</p>
<p>Like most students, our son did not have a car frosh year and because of a few too many tickets during HS, will be sans auto next year too. It honestly was no a problem in the slightest. A few friends had cars and it was no problem arranging for errands to the nearest PriceChopper or mall, weekend forays to local concerts/shows, and the ever popular roadtrips to Montreal, Providence, NYC, etc. Also, he could ride the local mass transit buses for free which he did a few times.</p>
<p>The big advantage of leaving the car home frosh year is that it encourages the student to focus on campus related activities.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the college and the kid. My daughter does not have a car at college (and her brother who now drives it at home appreciates that) but does depend on her friends at school to take her places. She goes to school in a fairly rural area with nothing except a tiny town (population 500?) a long walk down the hill. However, because of her friends, she's gotten rides home and back for the winter break and various road trips to concerts and almost weekly drives to the nearest big city. She does contribute gas but we all know she can do this due to the generosity of other sets of parents. If she didn't have good friends with cars, we probably would let her have hers with her. In such a rural area without public transportation, it makes sense.</p>
<p>Another friend has a son at a college 3 hours away. He got his car to campus in the first semester and uses it to go to a fencing class once a week a couple of towns away and then to get home for the breaks. I was against cars in freshman year until I realized that in some cases it makes sense. The older I get, the less black and white the world becomes.</p>
<p>A lot of kids here at penn don't have cars because there is really no parking and the university parking garages cost like $2000 for a space for the school year. The only people that have cars are the uber wealthy...</p>
<p>Another vote for no car her freshman year, mostly because the college (Millikin Univ) wouldn't allow it. And another vote for a younger brother that was happy with that rule!</p>
<p>We talked to her about taking her car next year (soph year) and she decided against it. Best I can figure out, she's six hours from home. If she has a car, she has to drive by herself to and from school for Thanksgiving, mid-winter break, etc. If she has no car, her Dad comes and gets her, then he takes her back. Much easier on her.</p>
<p>As for insurance, because she was so far away, we were able to drop her insurance totally when she left for school. Started it back up again mid-Dec when she came home for a month, dropped it again when she went back to school, picked it up again when Brother got his license, dropped it again when he got his own car, and picked it up again when she came home for the summer. Needless to say, we are on first name basis with our insurance company!</p>
<p>Peg</p>