@relaxmom
One college criteria we had was that the college either needed to be 3 hours drive or less from home, OR within an hour of a close friend or relative. My cross country kid had a very good friend of mine who lived very closeby. Plus we had relatives who could get there within an hour. My SIL actually took a shuttle for SoCal to be with DD the morning of the surgery she had. SIL spent the week there. I never got there at all.
If we arenāt going to dictate where our kids are going to live and pursue their careers after graduation, why should we dictate where they attend colleges, if they donāt have medical issues? Why should geography be an overriding factor when thereāre many other important factors in college selections?
Well this site is full of people who limit their kids choices in college for a zillion reasons - cost, prestige level, type of school etc. think of all the people on here insisting on their kids going to state schools or to places like Alabama! I donāt have any of those other limits I think I can have this one.
Getting to the UP is pretty difficult, but doing it once or twice a year may be a hassle heās willing to accept if thatās the school he wants to attend. Itās also very snowy and very cold in the UP, so he needs to be prepared for that.
Montana? Not that hard to get to, either through Denver or Minneapolis. Weather can always make it a longer trip than it should be, but really once you get to Denver, whatās another couple of hours?
In the movie āA River Runs Through itā the older brother took the train from Montana to Dartmouth. THAT was a long trip (and he didnāt go home for years).
Good news is he wonāt have to evacuate for hurricanes. My daughter went to school in Florida and I think there were 5 hurricanes in 3 years. Once heās in Upper MIchigan, he can stay put, watch some hockey, eat pasties (delish!) and look for his wolves.
Travel costs are a factor for many people. Hassles with getting stuff there for move-in, dealing with it for move-out. Unforeseen medical issues can come up at any time.
I wouldnāt have necessarily limited location for those reasons, but you have to have the right kid who can handle the distance, the possibility of limited visits, can roll with going home with local friends for breaks & minor holidays and has a certain level of maturity to be able to find solutions to problems that come up.
Without any influence from me, both my kids looked for colleges in a reasonable driving radius from our home. They both like the flexibility to pop home for a weekend if they need a break or want a home-cooked meal. One of older Dās college friends was from San Francisco and even though her parents had the means to fly her back and forth whenever she wanted, she chose to stay in NC most of the time and ended up spending some minor holidays and several summer weeks with us. Not going home very often didnāt seem to faze her. She was a good candidate for choosing a college on the opposite end of the country. She also ended up working here for 2 years after graduating.
For some kids who arenāt used to being away from home for long periods of time (via boarding school, summer-long camps, etc.) homesickness can also be an issue. I imagine that could be tough to deal with from thousands of miles and several time zones away.
Yes, I agree that some students (and their families) can deal with the geography issue better than others. My point is, though, that nearly all students may have to deal with this issue at some point, if they arenāt going to limit their career options. Some students (e.g. boarding school students) have to deal with this issue even earlier in their lives. International students (in both boarding schools and colleges) are another example. Also, if a student chooses a residential college, going home on a weekend instead of being with her/his friends and fellow students defeats the purpose, IMO.
No harm in the occasional weekend away from campus, but I agree - if itās every weekend, then a discussion may need to happen. Thatās one of the reasons I would have dissuaded them from considering our local in-state university campus - too easy to be home in 30 minutes.
Being a reasonable driving distance from home did come into play last year when my freshman D got a mild case of Covid. Her choices were to quarantine in her tiny dorm room, while trying not to infect her roommate, or drive the 3 hours home and have our entire house to herself (we were out of town). I was glad she was able to do the latter.
A few years ago I made a thread about distance. There were posters who thought distance shouldnāt be a consideration, the kid can deal with it. Sure they can, but sometimes it isnāt worth it. At the time we were considering a 4 hour drive, a nonstop flight + 2 hour bus ride, a flight with 3 hour layover + 45 minute taxi, and more. All doable, but annoying. After visiting the layover school, she decided the hassle wasnāt for her. So the visit was helpful.
She ended up 90 miles away, which was great when we had to move her out for Covid, or when she was in a theatre production we wanted to see, etc.
Yes, there is a big difference both in cost and convenience between a direct or one stop flight and a shuttle to a bus to the airport with two layovers home. Itās easier (and cheaper!) for my friendās daughter to get home from school in London than it is for my friendās daughter at Cornell.
This is more relevant I would guess to those of us in more remote corners of the country. We live in the PNW, you canāt just hop in a car and drive all night like you could in many parts of the US.
Our daughter is intent on leaving the region for college, thatās great and weāre all in favor, I just want her to be able to get home within a day. Youād be surprised how difficult that can actually be.
We are from PNW too. Doing the trip to Wiliam& Mary and UVA made us all appreciate schools that were a direct flight away and a short ride to airport.
Weāve learned a lot of things already having our kid living hours away that would only be exemplified by a harder to get to school. Move in day would become multiple days. Visits would take multiple days due to travel. I get limited personal days and just couldnāt make certain things work this year such as some of his school visits. Do I NEED to go? No, but I like to. I like to have the ability to make it work. We are the polar opposite of helicopter parents, but we also always make it work to show up when it counts.
Yes, it will be different now that heās an adult and doesnāt necessarily need us to be there for ālegal adultingā, but it is a factor. How much of a factor is what we are trying to determine.
Sometimes it helps to think of students as a litter of puppies (or any other group of young critter). Some are very naturally adventurous and love wandering off. Others stay as close as possible to mama, even if their siblings seem to be having fun in the distance. Then there are all of those in between. All types have their pros and cons. Itās who they are.
Know your puppy and allow them to be themselves if at all possible. Never assume any particular puppy should be more like their sibling. Round pegs with square holes just leads to unnecessary stress.
I think thatās the way we would like to look at it. Do the benefits of each individual school outway the hassle of getting there? If he absolutely fell in love with a place, he could put up with anything. But when you have a kid that likes everything (we joke about the money we could save on vacations because if we took him to a box factory heād be as excited to learn about boxes as he would be to go on an exotic adventure) itās harder to weigh in the travel. The only flaw in my plan is that we are not visiting some schools in the UP of Michigan because they are really hard to get to and I guess that should be telling us something. I guess we wait to evaluate those if a possible full ride is offered.
I guess? Thatās not really the factor for us, itās about cost and convenience. Wander all you like (and our kids are that way) but if you want to come home for Thanksgiving and it takes $2500 and two daysā¦nope.
Which is why ours didnāt come home for Thanksgiving. 
āHavingā to go visit one in Jordan while he was studying abroad was a nice perk for us. Definitely doesnāt suit everyone though considering we fielded a ton of questions asking us both why we would go and how in the world we could let our son go. It was awesome.
To each our own. My post meant there isnāt a wrong way unless one is trying to fit the round peg into the square hole. There are many colleges out there in many different places, any one of them is right for the correct student.
In this case, itās definitely the B==== (mamma dog) and not the pup. I know itās selfish, but a lot of it is about our time and inconvenience with move in, visiting (I know we donāt have to, but we like to. Kid tends to be involved in cool things we want to see), helping when he wants us to, etc. Kid is very independent, and we arenāt overly involved (we are only as involved as we should be). Weāve actually gotten closer with him away at boarding school and have a dynamic that really works for us and part of that is being able to spend time together when it counts. Maybe we are lucky that we got the chance to figure that out before he headed off to college. Others are probably figuring that out while their kids are there.
I enjoyed the perk of visiting my kid in Japan when she was there for a semester. People happily let their children study abroad.
Iām not trying to be argumentative. It appears that the reluctance is on your end and not your sonās. He says heās going back and forth. Iād let him make the final decision if you are okay with it really being his decision.
I have been on a tour of a box factory, actually, and it was super interesting. Highly recommended!
Good point! For us it really wasnāt about maturity, our kids were more then ready to go off to college, it was about the cost. If it cost and arm and a leg then the school was off the table or we had to hope that financial aid would help counter that.
We also discussed pros and cons without trying to sway our kid either way. We let them know that some locations might take a lot of time to get to and from home and school. If they went far away, they might not be able to come home for Thanksgivingā¦just something to discuss.
Our daughter studied abroad too and because she chose a college that affordable and didnāt cost a lot to get to, it made it possible. We didnāt go visit her though, itās her study abroad and weāve taken lots of trips as a familyā¦
In many cases, students stay close to home because that it what is affordableā¦itās not always a maturity thingā¦
True! I do have a co worker whose kid goes to college 30 mins away and he doesnāt have his car with him. That makes it a lot harder to come home every weekend.
My SILās sisterās older daughter used to drive home every weekend and her school was a 6 hour drive away. Her younger daughter went to school 20 mins away from home and never came home on weekendsā¦I think it does depend on the kid.
I think if a kid lives on campus, they need to stay on campus and not come every weekend. And that should be the case, no matter how far away the kid is. Even if the kid goes to school close to home, why do they need to come home all the time? I donāt think parents encourage it, but they certainly donāt discourage it either. If my kid, was coming home every weekend, Iād ask if everything is ok at school. At the school where I work, Iām surprised how often many kids fly home for the weekendā¦