It’s making his life tougher than it needs to be. If he takes a heavy load and wants to graduate on time and stay involved at college, he’ll burn out in one semester.
$14k is becoming the norm for college r&b. My daughter’s was $13.5 for her freshman year and was nothing spectacular, COL in the area was a LOT lower than San Francisco, and she didn’t eat anywhere close to the amount paid for food. That was in 2014. Many students move off campus to save money after the first year, but I bet in SF moving off campus wouldn’t be a savings.
Many of the students at our urban U take the light rail every day. From the farthest points in the city it probably is no more than 1.5 hours from door to door, but all that time can’t be spent studying. There is waiting, there are the many many times you don’t get a seat, there is having to ride backward half the time (I can’t read when riding backward). There are people talking and shouting and eating (not allowed but they do it). When I was commuting it was about a 45 minute commute, and I could maybe read for 30 of those minutes. Just reading, not studying.
There is the lost time and the cost of commuting to consider. If he could get a job for 10 of those hours, that’s $150/wk x 4 weeks= $600 month (plus commuting expenses saved). Won’t cover r&b but it’s a start.
I know kids who go to NYU who commute an hour and half each way.
That the the school OP is discussing is a commuter school makes it so he’s not alone in not being at school that much
@cptofthehouse he would definitely not be the only one commuting. But I am hoping he likes some of the more residential schools on his list too.
@twoinanddone thanks for the perspective! Definitely moving off campus in SF doesn’t really mean cheaper. That would be more the case in Sonoma, Humboldt, Reno, etc., so hoping some of the other campuses appeal to him when we visit.
Although SF State is largely a commuter school, there are also dorms on campus and a residential life environment in place for the students who choose to live on campus. Additionally, most of the commuters probably live in San Francisco or nearby communities like Daly City— within, say, a half hour commute. So if he opts for SF State he wouldn’t feel out of place living on campus – or living in an off-campus apartment nearby – but I’m with the others who feel that the commute the OP is contemplating is too far and would impact negatively on the student’s social life as well as academics.
My commute is just over an hour each way and I get paid for being there. It’s brutal, and the commute is what will make me eventually retire. To do that and pay for the privilege… no thanks.
I also think there’s a big difference between an adult commuting for work and a college student starting his freshman year. An upper-level student (junior or senior) might have enough experience with the school to be able to manage a commute – but not so easy for the freshman who is starting out and probably has very little flexibility with course scheduling and no experience as of yet with developing an appropriate time-management and study routine for college.
1.5 hours each way is long, although riding the train is less bad than having to drive that long. Still, unless the student has experience with long commutes to high school (as opposed to short commutes to a local high school), a long commute is one more thing that can make the transition from high school to college more difficult. A BART delay on the day of an exam may be quite stressful.
Also, the morning commute from Concord into San Francisco tends to be very full, so he may not get a seat to be able to study if he has to take BART during that time for a morning class.
Note that commuting is not zero cost (although typically less expensive than living on campus). The BART ride from Concord to Balboa Park is $6.30 one way (so probably about $2,000 per year in BART fares). If he is a runner, he may be able to get from the BART stations to SFSU and home at no extra cost (plus getting bonus exercise), but otherwise there may be additional costs of getting to/from the BART stations.
More than one hour is too much. Does he have to buy a train pass or is it free for students?
He can likely work 5 to 8 hours a week to offset some of the cost.
If there are other affordable options then look into them. However if this is what you can afford then he have to make the commute work.
Thanks for all the input! You all have reinforced my thoughts that this commute is not wise, especially as a first year college student.
We will wait to see where he is accepted and what financial aid if any he is awarded. We should qualify for the California Middle Class scholarship, although I know we can’t count on that as it seems hit or miss as to whether it actually pays out.
Actually it’s not too bad, if he is a biker (or even if not). The commute time from the Concord BART station to the Daly City BART is exactly one hour . (Normal commute for workers in Concord to downtown SF is close to 45 min). Then about a 10-15 minute bike ride (or use the shuttle) to SFSU. Definitely hilly but not too bad of a bike ride. He would have a seat on both going and coming back, which will be a big plus. It is pretty much at the limit of what I would consider to be acceptable as far as school commute goes though.
FWIW, I’m getting ripped off by my tenants - pretty close to SF State. Thanks to rent control (though I probably could raise it a lot if I really wanted to and get away with it, just to get them out) the tenants there are paying under $4K a month for a nice 4 bedroom house, with 5 people in there. They’ve game the system, they’ve already graduated a long time ago and are still there.
I wouldn’t commute 3 hours per day for a job. And they are paying me and not the other way around. Seriously.
Never mind being exhausted and stressed before an exam and having things go awry with the times of the train and missing an exam.
There had to be something closer perhaps?
Or a room in a house can be a lot less than your own place.
Just chiming in to say that I teach freshmen in a school that is about half commuter, half residential. Most of the commuters live nearby, but I have a few each semester who have the kind of commute you are describing, and I need to tell you, it often hurts them. Bad weather, traffic, cancelled trains, etc–all contribute to attendance issues, and missing important stuff. Some can study on the trains, some can’t. They tend to look exhausted.
On a more personal note: my S went to school in NYC, and we live in the Jersey suburbs. He did live in a dorm, for the first seven semesters, for the social aspect and because it would be an hour to an hour and a half each way by public transit. However:
Long story (told elsewhere on CC), he dropped out and went back six years later. By then, we weren’t going to–couldn’t–help him with room and board except to live at home. I don’t think the school would have given him a dorm room anyway. So he did the three hour a day commute, four days a week. (He was also taking six classes, twenty credits). Anyway, the upshot was that class, commuting, and studying were ALL he did that semester. That’s fine for a 28 year old finding his way back to graduation, but not for an 18 year old just starting out.
So I’m glad to hear you’re going to try to nudge him elsewhere, if you can’t let him dorm there.
90 minute commute each way is pretty reasonable in NYC area. Bus/Train into NYC, transfer to train to college, walk to campus. NYU, Columbia, John Jay, Fordham, St Johns, Pace, Manhattan just to name a few. Going to have to do it for work in a few years, so might as well get used to it now, lol
I would have your son try the commute now. Have him pretend he has a 9am class or whatever to get to and see how it goes. Then have him spend some time around campus and take the train home. He may have his answer right there. If he doesn’t think it’s that bad, try to have him do it again in the fall, when other students will probably be on the train and the trains will be more crowded as people are back from their summer vacations.
I think what eventually will be the determining factor will not be the time, but other factors. 1) how to get to the Concord station? The parking lot probably fills up by 6:30am. A monthly parking pass is expensive. Will mom or dad or someone be able to drop him off? In order to get a parking spot will you have to backtrack to North Concord or even to Pittsburg? 2) can he get a seat on the outbound? My guess is that he would, except for the trains between 7am and 8am. 3) how long does it take to get to a BART station (car or bus)?
The time on BART which is 70% of the commute time is not a big deal especially if he can get a seat. He can read or sleep. Coming back won’t be much of an issue, for sure he’ll get a seat.
My son in high school took a train to a bus to school like 35-45 minutes each way. No big deal especially with it packed with kids. Then last summer he had to take two college classes that he wanted to get out of the way. It was this commute like 2 hours each way then a 4 hour class then I would usually pick him up and a 40 minute drive home. It was exhausting. Most days he had 2 4 hour classes one in the morning and one at night.
I would not suggest what you are proposing if there are other options
Thank you again everyone for the input! I think if he decides his heart is set on SFSU, we will find a way to pay for the dorm for Freshman year at a minimum. Then we can consider perhaps an off campus apt for the remaining years with friends (that could be doable if they double up in rooms and look around the Daly City area).
But he hasn’t see any of the other colleges yet, so he may find others he likes also. We have 5 other visits lined up this summer. S knows we have a tight budget, and is very willing to work with us. He does not have a “dream” school and is very practical in his approach (love that about him).
@thedreamydaisy has he thought of applying to CSU East Bay in Hayward? That would be closer to Concord then San Francisco and a much shorter commute.