How far away did your kids go to college?

At the moment we’re looking at colleges 2, 3, 4, and 7.5 hours away. The 7.5 hours away is likely to be the most affordable, but I don’t know whether to even consider it because of the distance. If she drives, it’s a long drive for her to be alone. If we go after her, that’s 2 round trips making 30 hours of driving every time she visits home. In addition, it’s 2 hours from the airport, so she’d have to take a bus or find a ride. Two hours to airport, a couple hours at the airport, an hour in the air, and another hour drive home hasn’t saved a ton of time either.

The school 4 hours away might end up at comparable cost depending on her ACT, and it’s basically a straight shot on the interstate, so I would feel okay with her driving.

Just curious what others are doing with transportation and distance.

I went to school 6 hours away (in the late 80s). I never had a problem finding a ride home. I think my parents bought 2 plane tickets in 4 years. My S18 is looking within 3 hours away. One of these has the train as a popular option. Don’t let it be a deal breaker.

Southern Cal to upstate NY.
Non stop Flights on SW.
3 day drive minimum with stops.

One goes 150 miles, or just over 2 hours (on a good day). It is a pain to have to get her and return her on the same weekend, but she can often find rides with friends at least one way or at least half way.

The other one is 2000 miles away, or a 4 hour air trip. She went back on Friday, left at 3 am for a 5:15 flight, arrived on time and then waited at MCO for her friend to arrive - a 6 pm! He was supposed to be there about 3 but with weather on the east coast it took him an extra 3 hours. She lives about an hour from that airport.

7.5 hours away is ‘away’ at school and she shouldn’t expect to come home more than at Christmas. Thanksgiving will be even worse than you can imagine - traffic on roads, busy airports, crowded trains and buses.

But, I don’t think you should rule out schools just because of distance. It should be a consideration, but not a deal breaker at this point.

Our daughter’s school is almost exactly 500 miles from our house. She’s not near a major airport, bus terminal, or train station. To be honest, it’s a pain getting her there. One way, it’s 8 hours of driving with no stops. She can get rides some of the time, but there aren’t a lot of kids from our area at her school. We’re going to buy her a car this next year, because we’re tired of making the drive.

Our son’s school was 2,500 miles away. Travel by plane was fine, but when he fell seriously ill, it was tough.

We live in NC, kid goes to school in Maine. 15 hr drive, takes us a day and a half. We drove there to drop her off the first year and from then she has flown back and forth for breaks. We are an hour from the airport and the school is about 45 mins from the airport. Flying solo and being in charge of her transportation has taught her some life skills.

We live in HNL, as do my folks. I went to school in Eugene, OR and northern CA, both of which are a 5-6 hour plane ride plus drive from airport. Our kids both attended USoCal in LA, also a 5-6 hour and shuttle drive from airport. No regrets. My sibs attended grad schools in various cities—MA, MI, OR, CA. Folks didn’t visit but did attend one grad ceremony in CA.

My parents never visited either of my campuses. H and I have been to our kids’ campuses for move in, parents’ weekends, movie showing and graduations. It worked for us but you should factor in projected travel costs as part of the budget when figuring out college costs.

Older son went to college 300 miles away, younger son 9 miles away.
Older son now lives a mile away, younger son lives 880 miles away.

A year ago we were trying to decide between a school that is a four hour drive (straight on the highway), a nine hour drive, or an 11 hour drive. However, of the three schools that were an 11 hour drive away, two were within an hour of an airport that has direct flights to our local airport, the other would have been a two hour drive from the same airport.

There were of course a bunch of other considerations, although cost wasn’t one of them (all were very affordable).

Being a four hour drive was a big plus. However, DD decided to go elsewhere for other sensible reasons. DD went with one of the schools that is within an hour of the airport. DD mostly flies back and forth. We have driven a few times, mostly when we had a car full of stuff to transport. However, it is a big plus being close enough to the airport that she can take a cab to/from school when needed.

I don’t think that I would be comfortable having a teenager driving 7.5 hours on a regular basis. To me the issue isn’t the time, it is the risk of the driver falling asleep somewhere along the way.

One of our kids went to college a 2 hour and 10 minute drive from home.

The other went to college all the way on the opposite coast.

But then…we put some restrictions on applications for this reason. Kids had to be within a 3 hour drive from our house or within an hour of a close family friend or relative. Oh and with somewhat easy access to an airport.

I will say…let’s take a real life example. Dartmouth college is truly in the middle of no where in terms of public transportation. However, Dartmouth runs a shuttle service to Boston…I think more than once a day. The school has NO shortage of applicants or matriculated students despite being a good two hours or more from the nearest airport.

The selective colleges that get the most discussion on this forum attract students from all over the United States, and dozens of countries outside of the US; so many go to school at a colleges that are far away from home. For example, Stanford gets ~1/4 of its students from east coast states. I was in this group, so it was a full day of flying/driving/waiting to get from home to college. I never tried driving the full distance, but that would have taken several days. As you’d expect with the distance, I didn’t come home often… a couple times per year as an underclassmen and less as an upperclassmen.

One important location consideration that rarely gets discussed is where you’d like to live/work after graduation. For example, if you’d like to work in Silicon Valley, then colleges in that area are likely to have many local recruiters at employment fairs, easy internship opportunities, and special connections through professors and alumni. This relates to why I am living in CA today, rather than in the northeast… along with liking the climate and lifestyle. It’s a comfortable 69F as I write this. I’m about to go on a walk while wearing short sleaves and no jacket… quite a difference from the current 12F + snow in the town where I grew up.

We live in CT and I have my kids a geographic “triangle”: Maine to Chicago to Virginia. We just couldn’t afford to fly them back and forth to FL or CA or AZ or wherever. Daughter1 went 7 hours in Virginia; Daughter2 went 4.5 to Pennyslvania; and Daughter3 went one hour to NYC.

When D was considering schools, distance wasn’t necessarily a consideration as much as ease of getting there and back was. We are in mid-Atlantic. She applied to about 5 East Coasts schools, all were in manageable driving distance but more importantly, the further ones, tho still driveable (8 hrs one way) for move in/out, they were very close to airports for traveling home during holidays. She applied to two California schools, though in different cities, both were 10 minute drive from nearest airports.

In the end, she is 3500 miles away in California. Thankfully, both Southwest and Alaska Airlines have direct, reasonably priced flights from our local airport. We had no problem getting her home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and did not have to deal with any traffic or delays. Alaska runs specials all the time so flights are very reasonable. Her return flight to school when she goes back later this month was only $120. Honestly, it’s way easier on us than for many of her friends who attend schools here on the East Coast that are not convenient to airports or train stations. We are 30 mins from the airport so when she flies back/forth ii takes us less time to drive her to airport than it would to either of the in state schools to which she was accepted! On the college end, she is a 10min, $10-15 Uber ride b/w college and airport.

1.5 hours in optimal conditions (no road work, not rush hour, no bad weather). Usually it ends up being more like an hour and 45 minutes. A very comfortable distance.

We live in Asia during most of the year. It takes 24 to 30 hours of travel to get between her Massachusetts college and here. She only travels to our Asian home once a year.

Two went around an 18 hour drive away and one is a day’s drive away. I never really gave it a thought although the last one comes home alot more often, for Thanksgiving and other longish breaks. Distance was not one of the “factors” when considering colleges. Although I will say that we had one who could not get home for Christmas one year because planes were grounded. And this kid was 3 airports away. He was sad, but independent enough emotionally that he dealt with the cards he was handed and got his Christmas presents 3 days after Christmas as we had to FedX all his gifts. Fortunately he was a sophomore and living off campus so had a “home.” I don’t know what I would have done had he been a freshman with closed dorms…guess it would have been a call to a dean of something and everyone we knew in that state. Same kid got “stuck” in Denver because on that trip he was bussing back to college and the passes were closed and the bus had to turnaround and go back to Denver so no-go on the bus. That trip he called a friend in Denver and took an Uber to that friends house until the passes opened and the bus started running again. If those “hometime” things are important to you and/or your kiddo, then region should be a consideration because weather can have a great impact. Stuff happens. It’s either just inconvenient because that is your and your kids personality or it becomes a great source of stress, anxiety and frustration in which case I’d say, think about it carefully. For me and my kids it was more just a huge inconvenience and we went with the flow.

1,800 + miles away.

Ds and Dh have done the drive twice. Once for freshman move-in (I flew out to meet them) and once to get ds’s car to school at the beginning of his junior year (Dh drove out and flew back).

7.5 hours is a tough spot for reasons you mentioned. There’s no doubt that Ds will fly when he comes home. I think if you anticipate her wanting to come home frequently (or that you have that expectation of her) that you go with a closer school.

Son went to college 40 minutes away (in the middle of the night with no traffic – more like 1 1/2 hours under realistic circumstances).

Daughter went to college about 6.5 hours away, but we knew in advance that there was a charter bus between her campus and our area for all of the breaks. (She didn’t come home for all of the breaks because of the long bus ride, but the option was available.)

Neither kid had a car during college. Too expensive.

800 miles away. My college is about 40 miles away from the nearest airport so I just take public transit (a combination of light rail, bus, and commuter train). It’s very chill. I could Uber if I was in a hurry but public transit is cheaper than Uber there.

Our daughters are both at a school 4.5 hours away. This year, the oldest has a car, but before that, we did a combo of driving to visit/pick them up, bus, and ride share. Our son will hopefully get into his #1 school 1000+ miles away. We will likely move somewhere within a 3 hour drive from him (not to follow him, but to be back east where we grew up). That will make the girls about 1200 miles away, though.