I’d rather my kid drive herself than get into a car with whichever friend she can find willing to give her a ride. I also have a problem with telling a kid that asking people with cars for rides is a reasonable part of a plan for getting where she needs to go.
I generally agree with everyone that states a car isn’t necessary in college. But I do find it ironic, that one “solution” to being without a car is borrowing or hitching rides with those that do have a car!
I’m sure my kids would do fine without one for the most part. They could probably find alternatives to any “need” for a car, but it is convenient to have the independence that a car provides. My kids share a car (they are both in Claremont). Yes, most of the time it just sits there. But it provides freedom to run errands when they need to. But the main thing it does for us is provide them the independence to come home whenever they want to without us having to drive to pick them up.
My son needs transportation in Beirut because he volunteers in the Syrian refugee camp several times a week. We couldn’t afford to buy him a car, so he bought a motorcycle. He had to get his motorcycle license in Maine - he took a three-day course and barely passed the exam at the end.
He told me he rescued a puppy from an active minefield on Valentine’s Day. They named her Valentine and the vet provided free shots and exam for her. I’m so freaking proud of this kid, the one who made me tear out my hair when he was a teenager (of course, I’m scared to death, but there’s nothing I can do about it so I try not to worry).
What is ZipCAR?!
@Fishnlines29 - short term car rental company that is on many college campuses and allows students to rent from age 18 (generally). You pay a membership fee then an hourly fee to take a car - there’s usually a kiosk, not a rental office.
Most kids get a car or pickup of some sort when they get their driver’s license. Now the going age seems to be 16, which is absolutely ridiculous. I got my driver’s license at 15, and they ought to lower the driving age to 14 for daytime driving. As a parent I was happy for the kids to get cars for the same reason I was happy to supply them with a cell phone – for my own convenience. Their having cars meant I didn’t have to ferry them to and from school every day (the school buses are not acceptable) or constantly take them places.
Cars are not an absolute necessity on most college campuses, but they sure make life a lot easier. The OP says parking is “outrageous” without specifying a dollar amount. $100 per month is probably less than several Uber rides and a bargain; $400 a month is indeed “outrageous” in my book. It would be helpful to know the dollar figure. In any event, I don’t think the desire of a child to have a car on a campus where a substantial percentage of kids have cars is unreasonable. Most of the time the car will be parked, but when it is needed, it is needed. I do think the idea that many parents on this forum have that children should be encouraged to be the campus “mooch” is unreasonable. As for various “bus” systems, our town has such a system, and it had a stop right in front of a townhouse we rented when we first moved into town. I used the bus a couple of times to go to Wal-Mart, and it took three to four times as long and it would have to simply get in a car and go; and of course the buses stop running at 6 p.m.
My son may attend a semi-urban university this fall where parking isn’t provided for freshmen. He may still take a car part of the time for my convenience, not his, since it is far easier for him to simply drive to school than it is for me or my wife to have to spend hours driving him to an airport or train station. In terms of man-hours and expense, air travel is both more expensive and time consuming, while train travel is substantially more time consuming. It may be worth the expense of having his car privately garaged in order to save the time and money that would otherwise have to be spent in getting back and forth by plane or train.
@30socks suggested “borrowing” a friend’s car. My children are under strict instructions never, ever to loan out or to allow someone else to drive their car or to “borrow” someone else’s car. It’s is something that is just not done.
“Most kids get a car or pickup of some sort when they get their driver’s license.”
Maybe among your circle but I don’t think it is true to say that of MOST kids.
I don’t think Most kids get a car. good point about not lending the car out though, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that to my daughter, didn’t occur to me she might lend it out or borrow another, but it’s worth mentioning!
My daughter’s school has a “Loop Bus” that takes students around to popular shopping sites on the weekends, but they also have an “Enterprise (the rental car company) Car Share”. They basically can rent a car by the hour and you can be a freshman and do it.
When our oldest turned 16, she wanted a car, she said she was going to buy a nice used car with her own money she had saved working as a lifeguard, baby sitting, birthday money etc so we helped her look and she purchased it. She started the precedent that the next three kids then followed and aspired to do so. Granted, we paid for repairs, insurance etc which cost more than said car but they were not allowed to bring their car to college until at least second year.
I have a freshman now whose car is in our driveway until at least next year. I would not consider my kids spoiled for having a car. The two older ones bought their cars in high school and had them through college and the youngest just got one of the older ones as a hand me down. We are/were concerned with the first year adjustment, drinking etc, thus the no car for a year,and so far so good.
Wow. I live in a pretty affluent small town without any kind of public transportation and that isn’t even true here. When I myself was in high school in NYC exactly ONE person I knew in HS had a car and he lived way out in Brooklyn.
Do most kids in your area really get their own cars at 16?
We had three family cars when two of our kids were living at home. They usually used the 1997 Camry, which was older than our daughter! We bought it from a College Confidential user’s son! 
It finally died this year. So if the kids come home, they’ll be driving the 2007 Focus.
Actually, there’s a lot of research on the car vs. uber tradeoff. last report I read showed that one needed to drive 9481 miles/year for the car costs (including fuel, etc) to be cheaper than uber.
@OHMomof2 My son has a couple of friends who don’t have cars, but the norm in the South is for small-town and rural kids to get cars. They might not be the newest or nicest cars, but they are wheels. Of course, we always look at things through our own class prism: Most middle-class kids and affluent kids have cars in our area, and a lot of kids from working-class families do as well. Out of my graduating class of 28, all but one or two students had a car. A lot of this is, as I said, for the convenience of parents.
I had a couple of jobs in college that I never could have or would have had without a car; it would just have been too much hassle to try to get to work on foot, and there were no buses in those days. A car on a college campus might stay parked six days out of seven, but it sure is good to have to go out on a date, or to an away football game, or just to get back and forth to school.
Just to expand on my earlier comment on not lending out cars. My wife paid her way through Vanderbilt working and with loans and aid. She loaned her car out to her roommate, who wrecked it. When the roommate found out she was going to get money back (because she had equity in the car), she refused to pay the deductible, and my wife went from driving a mustang she loved to some donkey. And of course she essentially fell out with all of her friends over the matter and had a pretty miserable last year of school. No good can come from lending out a car. Obviously this might not apply to someone with whom you have a strong family relationship, but that’s rarely the case.
I agree—I have told my kids they are not to loan or borrow a car.
Zipcar is a great option for errands and a very occasional day trip. They operate on more of a car sharing model than a car rental model. On the two campuses I am familiar with, they have several cars parked around campus and in the surrounding university district. They charge a yearly or monthly membership fee - approximately $7 per month or $70 per year. They send you a card that allows you access to the cars. You reserve on-line a specific car for a specific time period. You just go to the parking spot of the car you reserved, unlock it with your card and drive. There is an hourly charge which varies from place to place, but it is about $7-$8 per hour. Insurance and gas are included. There is another company called CarShare and there might be others.
Both my kids went car free as under-grads. They both biked a lot, but they really like to ride, so for them, it was enjoyable. They also went to schools in very bike friendly cities and they were fit enough to ride long distances, handle the hills and carry the weight of their groceries.
Not all parents encourage “mooching”. We paid for the Zipcar for that very reason and we have always insisted they never drive someone else’s car and if they catch a ride with someone, they need to pay them. But, they both had severaf friends who generously let them know when they were going somewhere so they could ride along if they wanted.
My son’s college actually has a rule against Freshman from having cars. They want to force the kids to spend time on campus and getting to know people. One of the student orgs offers a cheap annual bike rental program. Students are encouraged to walk or bike everywhere. When they truly need to go further – like to the nearest airport for breaks – they either take the bus or pool together to split Uber rides. There’s a website where people can find each other for ride sharing.
I’m sure there are exceptions, like perhaps your daughters situation, but most colleges have resources to get around one way or another to all the places a typical student would need to reach. They may not always be as convenient as the students would like but that’s not the same as a car being essential.
My kids went to an upstate SUNY and neither had a car. However, had our D student taught up there her final semester, we would have given her a car because she would have needed a reliable means of transportation to what was essentially, a job. Instead, we opted to have her come home and student teach down here. I bought her a train pass. My friend’s D is doing her nursing clinicals and they gave her a car for this year so she can get to and from them. Their thinking, like mine, is that they need it for work.
I am not planning on giving techson17 a car his first year. One of his choices is 20 minutes away so even if he lives there, we can pick him up or he can take a bus home. The other school is too far away for me to feel comfortable giving him a car the first year, though we might later on. I don’t feel he has enough experience driving yet, though he is a decent driver. The main differences are that parking is free at this school and Amtrak is an hour away, as opposed to 5 minutes away for my older kids.
As an aside, none of my kids has ever had their “own” car. They have always used a family car.
All 3 of mine had old cars and number 3 also has a moped. It is Michigan I guess is me excuse. They take drivers training at 14 years 9 months, license at 16, then work and buy a car.
My D will not be taking her car to college in the fall. Only 1 of her top 3 allow freshman to have cars, so I don’t think it will be a big deal.