<p>Hi parents, I put this in the College Life forum but so far have only gotten very few responses, so I'm hoping I can get some more comments here....</p>
<p>For the question: if you have a child/children at a school that's not near a city and/or a major airport, how do they get to and from campus if they need to return home/school from out of state? do they utilize public transit such as buses or shuttles or do they hitch a ride from friends?</p>
<p>This is something to ask about when you are investigating these schools in the middle of nowhere. Many of them will have some kind of resource like a shuttle bus to the closest big airport at peak travel times. Most of them get this question a lot.</p>
<p>My son goes to school about 90 miles from the closest airport. A private company runs a shuttle service to the airport that drops/pick-up through-out the day, but in three years he has yet to use the service. He flys back home (or somewhere) 4-5 times a year and always gets a ride from a friend.</p>
<p>I only purchase his plane tickets and tell him when his flight is leaving, then leave the rest of the transportation arrangements up to him. He always finds a way.</p>
<p>Back in the day, my school had a ride board, where students who were driving somewhere could connect with students who wanted to go to the same place, so they could share expenses. (Flying was way too expensive back then). Perhaps your child’s school has something similar.</p>
<p>Trailways/Greyhound provided bus service, too.</p>
<p>My son is not in the middle of no where, but there is no direct flight from the NYC area to his school’s location. The nearest city is 90 miles away. So he has to take a transfer, sometimes two. Then he has a friend pick him up at the airport. I think he may have taken a taxi a few times freshman year. Like Archiemom, I just take care of the air part of the ticket.</p>
<p>However, ironically, it is often cheaper to get a ticket to this secondary airport, than to the major city. </p>
<p>Most schools have bulletin board both physical and cyber to look for rideshares to airports. Really it is an issue nearly anywhere you go to school unless you are in a big city. Few schools run regular airport shuttles except during special events. </p>
<p>After first semester most kids find ways whether it is to pool together and get a cab or car pool.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a school with a fair number of students who live in the closest metro area with an airport (Minneapolis/St. Paul). She’s never had any trouble getting rides from friends, roommates, etc. She’s typically coming home or returning to school at breaks, when the other students are returning as well.</p>
<p>He takes the airport shuttle bus or finds a ride. It’s a two-hour trip to the airport. He makes all those arrangements himself. As with many things, they figure it out on their own.</p>
<p>D has taken the train (two sides of the triangle to get her to us), bummed rides from other students, and mostly hoped that we’ll give in and drive her.</p>
<p>When your kids goes to a college out in the middle of no where, he is with many other kids in the same situation. After all that is a college out there. So there are ways of getting to and from the transportation centers.</p>
<p>My son told me that all of the kids at his college have cars. (Hint, hint). I told him, “Great. You should have no trouble getting rides.” End of that matter.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to Cornell (which is pretty much the definition of the middle of nowhere) and lives in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area (which is home to more Cornell students than you might imagine, despite the fact that spending one’s winters in Ithaca and one’s summers in Washington is ridiculous in terms of weather).</p>
<p>There is a private charter bus service that runs between the university and a shopping mall parking lot in a close-in suburb during each of the breaks during the school year. But you could not find out about it on Cornell’s web site. Because it’s not in any way affiliated with Cornell, it’s not listed there. People find out by word of mouth.</p>
<p>There may be something like this that serves your home area and your student’s college. If your student knows any upperclassmen at the college, they probably know about it. If not, start a thread on the board on CC that’s devoted to that particular college.</p>
<p>Middle of nowhere here with S1. One small airport serviced primarily seasonally. Sometime during sophomore year a bus service started but he hasn’t needed to use it so not sure how wonderful it is. We sent a car with S1 but the ride board is the most popular method of kids getting to more urban areas at breaks, weekends, etc. who don’t have a vehicle. Many there do have vehicles. It is definitely a consideration if looking at a destination type college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My husband asked my daughter to use a ride board to save money. She flatly refused. Young women sometimes feel that using a ride board is unsafe, and it’s hard to argue with that. There’s not much difference between a ride board and hitchhiking.</p>
<p>What college? Most have that info on their web site.</p>
<p>
I think there’s a couple of pretty huge differences - you are talking about fellow students, not some random nut job driving around; and you can meet the person ahead of time, so that you can scope them out and tell people who you are riding with. </p>
<p>You would have to be a spectacularly stupid nut job to do something to someone who knows your name, phone number, where you live, and what kind of car you drive, and has told someone else.</p>
<p>If she’s that fearful, she could limit her rides to other women.</p>
<p>East Endish Long Island is inconvenient to the entire rest of the world. DD went to school in Manhattan and took the RR. DS is in the Berkshires. He could take a shuttle to Albany and a plane from there, and we’d have a long trip to the airport. Instead, we’d take the ferry across the sound to get him. </p>
<p>Finally we gave him my car (120,000+ miles) and he comes and goes himself.</p>
<p>“This is something to ask about when you are investigating these schools in the middle of nowhere.”</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>“People find out by word of mouth.”
Well it’s not that secret, no mouth ever told me about it.
The schedule’s even posted on the internet, pretty poor secret: [Cornell-Bethesda</a> Bus](<a href=“HugeDomains.com”>HugeDomains.com)</p>
<p>As for “middle of nowhere”, it’s got an airport itself, is an hour from Syracuse airport, has commercial bus lines stopping there and has its own bus which runs to and from NYC. As importantly, it is within comfortable driving distance of the densely populated areas in the Northeast that form the bulk of its constituency, so many people drive or get rides pretty easily.</p>
<p>Dear MonyDad </p>
<p>Ever had a business trip to Florida … or even Baltimore … or Chicago … and want to get to Ithaca for something important? It’s definitely one of those “can’t get there from here” places without spending <em>huge</em> sums of money if you are on a tight schedule. Driving all night sometimes works. </p>
<p>If time’s not an issue, and neither is money, it’s not so much of a problem. </p>
<p>I am definitely of the 'been there, done that, own a bunch of tee shirts" camp regarding beautiful bucollic Ithaca and Cornell!</p>
<p>I’m somewhat laughing because Ithaca’s population can be counted in tens of thousands and the defined metro area is over 100,000. I thought we were talking about colleges in the boonies with towns where the number of college kids exceeds the number of town residences and there is zip, zero, nada public transportation. Ithaca…Bucolli maybe. Out in the middle of nowhere…not really.</p>
<p>I only discovered there was a shared van service from/to my son’s college through this forum when I was organizing final arrangements for his first Thanksgiving. The school also has a bus service that runs during special weekends. One of those was definitely the way to go, as the taxis to/from the airport to his college was about an hour long and nearly $50.</p>
<p>I suggest you tell us the name of the college. That way, you will find others who can specifically help you.</p>
<p>I just looked for chicago, 1- stops from Ithaca on continental, also US air and delta,
flights from syracuse on Jet blue, american, also non-stops on US Air and United. They are expensive though, and not hugely plentiful, that’s true.It’s true of a lot of places though. I didn’t check Rochester. Or Buffalo. there are enough options so that you can get out, maybe not just exactly when you want to though.</p>