<p>I would not assume my kid would be coming home at the drop of a hat even if nearby so a distant college would be evaluated on other criteria. It’s really more about the kid than money. My sister went to college an hour from home and rarely came back but I went home most weekends from three states away. I love seeing my kids but I would no more tell them where to live for college than where to live as a full grown self-supporting adult. If I can afford the school the rest will work out. If they want to come home often they’re not going to choose a school 3,000 miles away.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine setting geographic limits on my kids’ college choices (though I suppose if they had physical or mental health issues, that would be different).</p>
<p>There are many variables. What is right for one student or one family might not be right for another at all. Some students may indeed be prepared to head across the country (over overseas). They may have travel experience, or personalities that are really suited to that. But others may like the idea of the big move to independence, but may not fully comprehend how challenging that might be, being away from family, dealing with travel issues they haven’t experienced before, etc.<br>
I have noticed some posts on CC where prospective students seem to look at moving away to college as their one and only chance to find that independence. Perhaps grad school, or the job hunt will be the better time for some to consider making that big move. There is no reason a student can’t be independent and still close to home!
Responsible, independent adults do consider the feelings of others, including their parents and other family members when making big decisions, So if mom or dad want a student to stay close by, I would think the mature thing to so would be to at least take that into consideration.</p>
<p>We also live in the Northeast. My kids went to (or are going to) colleges 7 - 17 hours away. For all of them we looked at colleges from as close as an hour to as far as a 24 hour drive. Geographic distance didn’t matter as much as fit, both for the program and the college and bottom line cost. Every family and every student has their own take on what’s important.</p>
<p>Our D decided to limit herself to schools on the Western half of US… primarily our local NW area plus CA… and then added schools in Minnesota and IL where we have extended family. She ended up choosing the school in S. California which is about a 3.5 hour plane ride, but inexpensive since she can fly Southwest for about $150 each way usually. She likes being in our same time zone, too. Minnesota was her second choice though, and it would have been fine although the flights would have been pricier and probably only could have come home twice a year. We didn’t place any limits, but she just wasn’t interested in all the east coast schools.</p>
<p>Oh and we did drive the first time, although it was two days away by car… but made a pleasant road trip.</p>
<p>It’s so individual, obviously. Also sometimes, perhaps, hard to predict in advance. D applied to schools all over, ended up in-state and in her freshman year has been coming home almost every other weekend. She’d been away from home and parents for a solid month or so every summer since she was quite young, so I wasn’t thinking she’d <em>need</em> to come home frequently, and of course I don’t know how it would have worked out if she went to college further away. That might have been fine, too - or not. As it is, home and college are a couple of hours’ drive apart, she’s been a more anxious freshman that I would have predicted, and I’m really very grateful that it’s easy for her to come home when she feels like it. I’m sure her pattern will evolve. Meanwhile, it’s lovely to see her when she turns up.</p>
<p>I told the kids I would rather drive to the airport then drive 6+ hours to get them. We had an under 3 hours or over 6 target. That 4-5 hour round trip is just LONG. They won’t be coming home on weekends no matter where they went so it doesn’t really matter how far they went but they didn’t want to be too close so it was tempting to run home for every little thing.</p>
<p>We didn’t set a limit, but D1 ended up at a school 3.5 hours driving distance from us. While she was in college, she was very sick twice. The fact we were able to bring her home for a short period to nurse her back to health was a big benefit we didn’t count on. </p>
<p>We lived overseas when D2 applied to her curent school and we were prepared to be few flights away from her. Nevertheless, when we were able to move back to be 4 hours driving distance away from her, we were very happy about it.</p>
<p>Every Thanksgiving and Winter break we see people posting on CC about difficulty of getting home due to weather. It is something to consider and be prepared for.</p>
<p>It’s a big world out there. I wanted my kids to see and experience different parts of the country. D is in Boston (we are in Chicago). S chose a school 45 min - 1 hour from home. While that made move-ins convenient, all else being equal, I would have liked him to explore another part of the country too.</p>
<p>I always found it very provincial when Midwesterners acted as though there was nothing outside the Midwest, and I have no interest in setting arbitrary limits. It’s no big deal to get on a plane.</p>
<p>“Unless you have a big travel budget or, for whatever reason, think prolonged absences are desirable, I can’t see a good reason to send a child across the country–whatever you think is there, is surely also closer to home.”</p>
<p>There is no difference in how frequently my S and D come home. They come home on Tgiving, Xmas, and spring break. The fact that one is local and the other isn’t is irrelevant.</p>
<p>I’ve long noticed a difference between my siblings, my kids and their cousins who lived away from our hometown even if only for a little while, and the ones who didn’t. The ones who have never ventured too far from “home” have a smaller worldview, are more threatened by differences, take longer to adapt to difficult circumstances, and seem less willing to take risks of any kind. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t happy and successful-some of them are. But the ones who have seen first-hand that life in our hometown or home state isn’t the only way things get done have proven more able to move on when they’ve had to, no matter what the problem.</p>
<p>It’s just my family, and that’s a small sample. But I think it helps to have to fly by the seat of your pants instead of relying too much on mom and dad when you’re leaving the nest.</p>
<p>We live in the Midwest and didn’t put any geographic limits on our daughters’ choice of schools. D1 ended up at a very good LAC just outside Philadelphia. We live literally 5 minutes away from a major airline hub (fortunately, not in the flight path). Two major carriers and Southwest compete for passengers between here and Philadelphia so the airfares are quite reasonable, and it’s about a 2 hr 15 minute flight non-stop, with pretty convenient flight schedules. Leaving ample time for check-in and airport security, she can make the trip doorstep-to-doorstep in 4 hours or so. That means she can finish up her day’s classes, get to the airport by 5 for a 6 p.m. (Eastern) flight, and be home by 7:30 (Central), in time for dinner. We see her at Thanksgiving, over her month-long break between semesters, and most of her fall and spring breaks, as well as the occasional special family event weekend, for somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 per year in travel costs, plus burning some frequent flyer miles (hers and hours). That’s a pretty small fraction of the total cost of her college education. </p>
<p>D2 has applications in at several colleges in the Northeast and several in the Midwest. The closest is Carleton, a 45 minute drive from here; next closest is Grinnell, a 4-and-a-half hour drive. The farthest is in suburban Boston. But Boston, like Philadelphia, has great airline connections to here, and in some ways it would be more convenient than Grinnell. There are no public transportation options between here and Grinnell, and while there are enough Twin Cities-area kids attending Grinnell that she could probably find a ride during major school breaks, that puts you at the mercy of someone else’s schedule. The only other options, then, would be for one of her parents (probably me) to go and fetch her, driving 9 hours round-trip on both the front and back ends of the break; or to set her up with a car, which after the purchase price, depreciation, insurance, oil & gas, maintenance and repairs would almost certainly cost more than what we pay to fly D1 between here and Philadelphia. Or, I suppose, get her to the Des Moines airport and fly her home, but since one airline has a monopoly on that route, it’s usually more expensive than flying between here and Boston or Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Bottom line, it’s hard for me to see how it’s any advantage at all being a 4-hour drive away as opposed to 4 hours doorstep-to-doorstep by air, unless the kid already has a car and is already locked into those expenses. The thought of my spending 9 hours on the road twice over Thanksgiving break to fetch a daughter home and get her back to school again sends shivers down my spine; and if that’s what it takes, those special family weekends just ain’t happening.</p>
<p>We definitely calculated the cost of travel in our overall cost calculations. We told our kids that we would pay for 2 round trip airline tickets a year - one at Christmas and one for the summer (if they wanted to come home). If they chose to go to a school within driving distance, they could keep their car and come home whenever they wanted. </p>
<p>For D1, it ended up being cheaper (with merit awards and FA included) for her to go to school halfway across the country than at the private 10 minutes from our house. We have provided the 2 tickets per year and she’s perfectly happy. She has not come home to live with us during the summers - she’s always found a job that pays (or provides) for housing. So, we see her for 3 weeks at Christmas and 1 week in the summer. Works for us!</p>
<p>S2 is hs senior, but just accepted an offer at another college on the East coast. This college has offered him a $2000 travel grant to help defray costs. Of course, we will just apply that towards tuition and still give him the 2 round trip tickets per year. The 2 kids are already making plans to spend Thanksgiving together since they will only be 2.5 hours from each other. </p>
<p>This is just what works for our family. Every family must do what works for them.</p>
<p>I agree with PizzaGirl, it’s a big world out there and kids benefit from that experience away from home. We live in Socal and my daughter is a first year in North Carolina…if she were 4 hrs away it wouldn’t make a difference in how often we saw her. Today’s technology like FaceTime, Skype and even just texting make the long distance much easier to deal with I would imagine than say 15 years ago.</p>
<p>My son picked a college that was in the same metro area as where we live. He didn’t want to leave the state because he had done enough flying in his life to know what he’d be getting into, and he had no interest in making his carbon footprint any bigger. He’s had his own apt year round since the end of freshman year, so we probably see him less in total than a student who spends all of Xmas and summer breaks at home. You don’t have to go 2000 miles away to be independent. If he chooses to leave the state after he graduates, it will be an easier adjustment for his parents, since we’ve had 4 years to get used to him not being in our home.</p>
<p>D goes to school in northeast and we live in CA. </p>
<p>Pros:
- Great to broaden your horizons by experiencing different viewpoints, personalities, weather, etc from living in different part of the country, even if it is just 6 hours away by car.</p>
<p>Cons:
- Travel costs
- Travel time: If you include driving to airport, airport waits, driving to school, total travel time is 11 - 14 hours door to door. Travel time also cuts off 2 days of any vacation home.
- Kid can’t just pop home to visit parents or do laundry or give college friends a home to hang out at.
- Kid can only come home a few times per year.</p>
<p>It’s a big world out there, true, but being in one part of it for four years hardly amounts to a cosmopolitan experience. My kids have traveled abroad and spent summers away; having to attend college within 4 hours of home is not a hardship or unreasonable limitation on their lives. They are still able to live completely independently without a helicopter in sight. And seeing my kids only twice a year would be totally unacceptable to me–and I think for them, too! They come home for Thanksgiving and Passover. They come home to attend a cousin’s wedding or see an old friend’s new baby. I travel to their part of the world to spend some important one-on-one time when there’s something new in their lives, like a school performance or apartment. Much less of that would be possible if airline fares, delays and hassles were involved. Both kids can hop on a train and be in their hometown in 4 hours at a reasonable cost. Having Skype conversations now and then isn’t a substitute for actually spending time together and sharing experiences. I think it’s a little sad that a kid would want to live across the country from family and see them so rarely.</p>
<p>By the way, my feelings on this subject also extend to the generation before mine. I was really dismayed when my in-laws decided that moving to Florida was more important than spending time with their still-young grandchildren.To the extent I can help it, my own retirement plans won’t keep me a thousand miles from the most important people in my life.</p>
<p>MommaJ–4 hours away could be a huge change for some people too. For our kids, there just were not options that met what they wanted in a school closer than 4 hours away.</p>
<p>This is obviously a decision that should be made within each family. I have 2 kids a 4 hour drive away. I like to drive and an 8 hour round trip was no problem, but we often car pooled, D took the bus, S had friends from the area with cars who drove him home. I didn’t tell my HS senior about the Claremont colleges in CA because they sounded perfect for her, but she discovered them on her own. So now she has a school very far away in the mix of possibilities. She would only come home for winter break, as Thanksgiving would be too short and her spring sport would take up spring break, but my kids who are closer did not always come home spring break either, and none of them ever came home for any other weekends. Other than the extra travel time and money, I don’t see much difference added by the extra distance.</p>
<p>My kids are closer to their grandparents who moved to Florida and summered in Wisconsin, because we spent weeks at a time with them, as opposed to my parents who were closer so we usually just spent an afternoon with them.</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>How do <em>you</em> feel about it? How do your parents feel about it?</p>
<p>My son is 3000 + miles away in Boston. (We’re in farthest south Southern California)</p>
<p>I have a local family as a contact and I know if there’s an emergency, I can (hopefully) count on them to act quickly. There is also a lot of support on campus among my son’s friends and on the FB page for my son’s college.</p>
<p>It was important for me to have a network of support for my son before he got to college. He’s a super extrovert, so it wasn’t hard for him to do. It wasn’t my first choice to have him across the country but he’s very happy and that makes me ok with it.</p>
<p>As others have said, this is a very personal decision that only you and your parents can make.</p>