Per the OP, I don’t really see a difference between driving 6 hours and flying 1-3 hours.
For example, we live Los Angeles and a flight to Oakland (UC Berkeley) is less than 1 hour but a 6 hour drive. A direct flight to University of Washington - Seattle is a little over 2 hours about the same time as attending Cal Poly SLO and driving for 2.5 hours with traffic.
IMO, part of growing up is being on your own and not having to rely on your parents and hometown for comfort all the time. And most kids come home for Thanksgiving, holiday/New Years break, spring break and summers. They actually spend a lot of time at home during their college years.
@MAmom111 My lad who went to school without a nice airport nearby (12 hour one way drive from home) found friends who lived nearby and came home sharing rides. We picked him up about an hour from home and helped pay for gas. We offered to have him fly from a semi-close airport once and he told us he preferred the drive with friends - they had a fun time.
My other two have airports nearby. That’s super convenient. Even so, there is one time we drove one lad to school and ourselves back the same day for the 6 hour away (one way) lad. It can be done, though it makes for a long day. Usually when we drove him there we spent the night there. Those were fun trips.
My 22 year old senior came home this weekend (her college is 350 miles away). I think she has a bit of senioritis, tbh. She’s already lined up a job after graduation (on the other side of the country) but was feeling stressed by midterms and preparing for finals. She basically said what the OP said in the first post, that it was nice to just come home for the weekend, find refuge in her old room and sort of recharge her batteries. Being 350 miles away made that feasible. If she’d been 2000 miles away I’m sure she would’ve settled for FaceTiming us. She also told her 17 year old sister to consider the benefits of being relatively close.
Do inform your kid of pros and cons of each choice but in the end, let them make the decision if financially possible. After all, its their life. Don’t let it sour your relationship with them.
My child is afraid she’ll be overly dependent on us. The 2 schools she’s considering are 20 minutes away and 1.5 hours away. She’d live on campus in either case.
Do you think there’s any real difference in how easily we could visit or whether she’d be overly reliant on us at those distances?
@yaskwhy S17’s freshman roommate lived 10 min away. It was great - when it was too hot, they dropped off a fan. Stopped by for lunch on Sunday once in a while. If she’s living on campus, it won’t matter (assuming she doesn’t have a car) - as long as the parent isn’t tempted to go visit constantly.
S17 is 1.5 hours from home. To me, it’s perfect. Close enough that we can run down and get him for breaks, too far to come home every weekend. Not that he wants to - he loves it there. Grandma is retired and she will run down for a day - the cold spell where he realized he didn’t have a warm coat; the last minute invite to a formal that he needed a shirt & tie for, etc…
In the beginning was when it was most tempting to come home - girlfriend was close to home, a lot of kids having adjustment issues. It was easy to come home, but we set the expectation that he had to spend the first several weeks there. After that, he pretty much never wanted to come home! Now as classes have ramped up, he really doesn’t have the time.
[QUOTE] @CupCakeMuffins I mentioned all these as I often see posts about students having issues settling in college, even battling health problems or depression and avoiding travel as flights are expensive. Obviously, they don’t have to go home regularly but when they do need/want to, it may help to have an option to do so.
[QUOTE/]
This is how I interpreted your post; also, some kids are disappointed that they do not have the option to go further away, i.e. their local state is their only ‘option’ from a disappointing admissions season; presenting the ‘bright side’ is a good thing. I’m already thinking of Thanksgiving and whether to go be with my S (and spend longer because I have time) or bring him home for two days, which seems like a waste of time!