Including or excluding New Jersey?
I’m someone who lives a plane ride away from my parents and siblings, and geography is a big deal. No more getting together for a casual dinner or attending small celebrations. For me, I wouldn’t mind about my kid going away to college for 4 years, that’s a short time. My focus would be on where they are going to get a job and where are their friends and significant others going to be from. If your kids go to college outside of your region the chances are increased that they will move out of your region. I think those chances are increased if the school is not a national school but rather a regional school.
I imagine a lot of theater kids try to go to NYC for college to be at the center of things. I expect the same is true for CS kids eager to get to California. Yes, one can start in theater in Boise college and move to NY eventually, but there are tradeoffs.
@ucbalumnus Boston-Washington corridor is basically Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, NY, NJ, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington DC. Some will expand their search to include Vermont, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
We put no regional restrictions on the kids’ choices. Neither wanted to go to the West Coast, however. We live in Michigan. One attended college in Chicago, about 200 mi; the other in Providence, about 650 mi. Now they are both living in NYC. It was inevitable that they would both live in a big city, though for different reasons.
We didn’t know that we would stay planted here. But we’re only a 2-hr plane ride from them. They have excellent careers. We don’t want to live in a big city.
I don’t agree with geographical boundaries for the most part. As long as its within the budget allowing for the travel, then I don’t see an issue.
For what its worth - I was not happy when DD applied to Hawaii as the travel necessary became cost prohibitive very quickly and I didn’t like an ocean between us but really, it was the exorbitant costs to get here there and home that was a deterrent.
My Dd is going 900 miles to and due to the availability of airport options, it is cheaper for me to fly 2000 miles to San Jose, CA than it is to go to DD’s college town that is half the distance. I can also get direct flights to CA where I cannot to her college town. Distance is all relative in these scenarios.
Most kids stay in their region for college. I think it very much depends on the kid and the family finance tolerance for increased travel expenses. No kid “needs” to be far, far away from home. Some are adventurous, some romanticize it and regret it mid-freshman year, and some thrive on it. No matter how you cut it, flying a student back and forth long distances is more expensive than being able to drive 3-5 hours to pick them up and drop them off, If a student is “fine” not coming home at the drop of a hat, fine not coming home for the long weekend holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter and you are a parent who doesn’t “need” to see their kid on a fairly regular basis it can work out. If you have a kid with mental or physical issues that would need parental assistance fairly quickly you might not want to be flying across the country. If you have a kiddo whose been managing their doctor and dentist appointments on their own for a year, you might not worry about their ability to management their way through hospitals and doctors and insurance, etc.
Most commute to the local community college or state university for cost reasons. Travel expenses are small compared to the cost increase of living at the college versus cost at home and commuting, and out of state or private schools can cost significantly more (except for the strongest students who can earn merit or get into good FA schools).
Going away to a residential college, whether near or far, is usually for those from higher income/wealth families (who are willing to pay) or higher academic credentials (who can get merit or FA money).
OP, you stated your son has high stats and wants to major in computer science. If you limit your search to the East coast, you have eliminated more than half of the top-ranked computer science colleges in the country. Computer science is a difficult major to be admitted for at many schools; I don’t know if he is looking a elite computer science schools or not. If he wants an elite school, I would not narrow my search by excluding many of the best schools, or be prepared to accept the possible consequences of that narrowing.
@drewsmom17 - Depending on your budget, those full OOS cost CA public universities may be impossible anyway. Rather than using distance as a first filter, I’d recommend using your budget limits for that. Distance can be a second or even third filter once you know what is and isn’t affordable. For example, if your kid has the stats for an automatic admit with full-ride at a decent place, and that place is outside your geographic limits, are you really, truly going to tell your kid that that particular automatic admit with full-ride can’t be used as one of the safeties?
We live on the East Coast where there are many wonderful college choices. I told my kids that if they wanted to go “a flight away” for college that they would need to explain why the school they would have to fly to would be better than the options within driving distance (ex. a particular academic program, merit scholarship opportunities etc.). If they could make a reasonable case, H and I would be open them going further away. Both ended up on the East Coast for undergrad and my S did go to the Midwest for his grad grad school (which was a Top 4 program in his field and well worth the additional distance).
We live in New England and initially expected our pups to stay local, within a few hours drive. But finances come first. S chose to stay relatively close, at Columbia, but he strongly considered Pomona, Cal Tech, and Harvey Mudd (he had acceptances from all 3). Pomona and Mudd included a doable amount for transportation in the total budget for COA.
D is thriving at Stanford. They included a very generous amount for travel in their COA and aid package. So please don’t think just because a school is far away, the higher travel costs may make it a deal breaker. Stanford ended up tied with Yale and Princeton as her cheapest options.
I like powercropper’s post. I do think colleges near airport hubs trumps six hour drives. A college with a strong CS program does not need to be in CA to get a CA job. My son had two internships and a final job offer - all in CA from Carnegie Mellon. Since the internships paid for housing and flights out it was really not a problem from a fiscal point of view.
I am over 60 years old. For years after I graduated I wished that my parents hadn’t said I had to go to a school in my state. , the state that I lived since I was born. They didn’t explore options or give me a budget, they just said, this is your limit. By the time I went to grad school that I paid for myself, I chose a school over 2,000 miles away. My first job was 3,000 miles away. I have never moved back home and only visited once a year at Christmas. I think you want to make sure your child is included in the decision. If it is financial, give them the financial parameters. If there are family obligations, tell them what they will sacrifice if they are too far from home, or how many trips you would be willing to pay for. I might have ended up going to the same school, but it would have been nice to at least known what all my options were. College is a great time to experience another environment, a great opportunity to grow. Either way by having them involved in the decision will make them be more satisfied with their choice.
If it were me, I’d concentrate on financials, fit, and lining up reaches/matches/safeties that fit those criteria. If a particular school (wherever it is) requires long, expensive travel, I’d make clear that travel home would not be occurring often, probably only for semester break. I’d also note that expense aside, travel time alone makes logistics difficult going coast to coast.
If you are moving to the east coast when he goes off to college, keep in mind he is unlikely to see your new home as equivalent to his old home and your new home will not include the attraction of meeting up with high school buddies.
(If he is looking for options among CA privates, SCU is next to the San Jose airport.)
S was easy - he wanted to stay within 3-4 hours of home.
D wanted to go far. I told her she could, but we could visit midwest and (north)east coast most easily so if she wanted CA it would have to be without visits, pre-app. She still had trouble narrowing down her list within those parameters, so I think it was fine.
We originally tried to limit our kids to 3ish hours, though my daughter will end up being 5 hours away.
For one thing, my mom is 87. If at some time in the next 4 years we have a crisis, we wanted the commute to be doable. Likewise, we want the kids to be able to get home for Thanksgiving and for their sister’s Sweet 16 next year. And my kids tend to be homebodies anyway…much more than my sister’s kids, who are attending school 14 hours away at Clemson.
So we set a ballpark 250 mile radius, now stretched to a bit over 300. Roughly Boston to Baltimore, stretched to southern New Hampshire.
It’s not great for everyone, but both of my older kids were able to find the perfect school given those parameters.
My father had the 5 Hour Rule - we had to pick a college within 5 hours of home in case he had to round trip it in a day I grew up in NJ so there were plenty of choices. I ended up 3 hours from home.
I think the most important thing is to be honest and open with your child about the reason(s) for the geographical limits. That is, don’t say “you have to stay close to home because of money” when what you really want is for the child to stay close to home because you’re nervous about him or her being far away. Conversely, don’t say “you have to stay close to home because I’m nervous about you being far away” when actually you’re concerned about the money and then have to say you can’t pay for a close-to-home-but-expensive college.
Our DD went 3K miles a way and I don’t always like it. She does seem very excited to come home though. And that is nice. She also hopes to return to our home state after graduation. Keeping our fingers crossed. Personally, I wouldn’t limit the choices unless there were very clear reasons (cost, health, travel issues) and then I would be direct about it. If it is fear, then I’d ay that too. Begin engaging with your young adult in a manner that helps them realize the impact of whatever decision is made.