<p>What would be a main reason to go away to a College rather than staying nearby ( less tham 2hrs ) ?</p>
<p>In my son’s case it was that the college far away was different from all the local colleges. But if he’d wanted to go to Big State U or Friendly LAC, he would have stayed local by his choice and by ours.</p>
<p>There are relatively few times in your life when you can decide to experience another part of the country while having a built in support system waiting for you there. It’s been a major eye-opener for our east coast metro area kids to discover the rural midwest and west coast. It’s given them a sense of perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of the home turf, which I think is invaluable.</p>
<p>Second advantage: They have both discovered that they can handle a lot more of life’s lumps without us than they (or I) expected. The schools and their friends have been there for them. And it’s given them additional self-confidence. They are now certain that they can live pretty much anywhere and handle whatever comes their way. I’m not sure they would have had that confidence if they had stayed in their safety zone for these four years.</p>
<p>Agree with M’s Mom. DS definitely went “away” for college. Everyone asked me how I could let him go so far away. When else is he going to get the chance to try something different without it being dictated to him? There were easily a dozen LACs he could have gone to that would have met his needs. Why not go some place different? If/when he goes to graduate school, he’ll be lucky if he has a choice. Same with a job. We kept telling him, if things don’t work out, you can always come back home.</p>