Other than move in day and move out day, I’ve never been in my kids’ assorted dorm rooms and apartments though they are 5-6 miles from home. They’ve never brought college roommates to our house. No point in hanging out in a quiet family neighborhood when there is a beautiful and lively Big 10 campus of 43,000 students on a lake, near woods in our state’s capital city.
We live in metro Atlanta and a great many of the best and brightest students from around the metro area attend GA Tech (downtown Atlanta) and UGA (Athens is probably 45-60 minutes away). They all live on campus, rarely seem to come home (even to do laundry?) and are having/have had terrific college experiences. The biggest concern for many of these kids is the number of students from their high schools making the same choice but once they get to school they realize that there are kids from all over.
My kid grew up two blocks from the top-notch private university her father and I attended (and where I work.) She had no interest in attending even though nearly all students live on campus all four years. She both wanted to experience an urban, rather than our town’s suburban, life and was targeting a specific program at a university on the opposite coast. She ended up attending that program…She had a great experience there and I think benefitted tremendously from living in a very different environment. Fortunately, the school I work for pays an equal tuition benefit to employee’s children at whatever school they attend so there was no real cost difference beyond travel. The downside is we can’t get her back to this coast post graduation!
I wouldn’t expect free-for-alls at our house either . . . if anything I worry that would rarely see my son. I was clarifying what I meant by reasonable boundaries (both sides).
Which goes back to my original point - depends on the kid and family. I’ve seen it work well both ways.
Just for the record, I would never encourage my children to commute, and they would not want to. My concern is that by attending the local university they never have the experience of arriving at a brand new place.
Back when I lived 30 miles from home I would go home once or twice a week as a freshman, including all non-ballgame weekends. After a couple of years I went home so rarely that my dad’s secretary wrote me and told me she would no longer be depositing my monthly check; I would have to visit at least once a month to pick it up from the office signing ledge, where she would leave it for me.
I live 5 minutes drive from and a 15 minutes bike ride from a big 10 campus. Mine were itching to go elsewhere, and did. However a D is home for grad school this year, and having her in town living closer to campus (5 minutes bike ride) is a lovely treat. Her smaller grad program of 17 kids were over here for a holiday party last night, and I loved being able to meet them all and get to know some a bit better.
As so many of my kids peers went to undergrad here in town, the downside for me is that they ended up with a partying social group in the college years right here in town, and spending any time with them at school breaks was not easy. I also am glad that they mixed with kids from all over the country and world in their undergrad experiences, though close friends also came from study abroad.
Personally, I think the entire needing to find independence in college is a little bit of an overly expensive exercise for some families. There are many ways to find independence, summer jobs in other parts of the country and world, internships, foreign exchanges, etc. In much of the world, college students live at home and seem to survive the experience.
“Brand new place” is relative. I guess it’s one thing if the kid has been taking DE for a while, knows many profs in his future major dept. Or has been doing summer sports or other programs there. But once “on the ground,” there can always be new things, starting with the kids you live and study with.
Depending on my kid’s major interests, I might be hard pressed to dismiss Ole Miss just based on proximity. One reason I encouraged D1 to look at the local Ivy was the programs she could have used for her major would have been a fabulous match- and knowing her style, I felt the profs would be delighted to have her. I also work there and DH had a tuition benefit but I will say where she did land was a better $ deal, in the end. (And a super academic experience.)
We live in a college town and I enjoy it very much, but I’m very glad my kids didn’t want to go there. It’s a fun sports school (go Ducks!) but imo a mediocre college except for some departments. If I lived in Madison, I’d have no issue with my kids going to school there, but I’d still want them to have the dorm experience. The kids who’ve done well here are those who went to UO but live on their own. And too many of them have dropped out.
It depends on the kid, the family, and the school.
I attended the local four year university when I was in college. It was a branch of the state flagship. It was 10 miles away from where I grew up. I lived in a dorm my freshman year. I lived in an on campus apartment the next year and off campus in an apartment or house the last two. My parents didn’t attend college and they never took any of us to visit other colleges. They felt like if we attended college it was good enough. Fortunately it is a really nice school with a good reputation. I liked it a lot and if I had the chance to go back and do something different, I wouldn’t. My own kids won’t have that option because there isn’t a four year college within 90 minutes of where we live. They could attend a local community college, but we’re not encouraging that unless it is something they really wanted to do.
My S went to college 20 minutes from home. But we talked about it and agreed up front that my H and I would never just pop by unannounced to say hello and he would not come home with laundry etc. That said, the convenience was nice and it was easy to get home for breaks and if there was a problem we could help out (ex. once his laptop broke and I drove down an old one for him to use while his was being repaired. Overall, it worked out great and he had a full residential experience on campus.
I grew up about a half-hour’s drive (or a 1.5 hour bike ride) from my state’s flagship university and that’s where I attended. As far as I was concerned, it was like a different planet. Never saw my folks except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and graduation, and the occasional weekend visit, usually during the summer.
I now live within walking distance of our state flagship (different state). My daughter will likely have the stats to qualify for a free ride but she really doesn’t want to attend there. The likely cost of alternatives will probably run 35-65K per year! I think it is best that she go out of state for her own growth and development. But parts of me (both the heart and the checkbook) wishes she’d end up a bit closer to home.
Close friends live in a college town of a large state flagship. Their children all went OOS. I told our girls that it would be wonderful if they attended locally but they could only come home once per month. Be separate. One went OOS and one ended up 2 hours away.
We live a few miles from our state’s flagship (one of their buses stops a block from our house), but our oldest has no interest in going there. He may actually end up in Oxford.
D2 was accepted to a school 15 minutes from home that would have been a great fit. Of course, she didn’t want to go there, essentially because she had been there many times and already knew her way around.
We live in the same town as our state’s flagship. My S went quite far away, but many of the kids from his high school attended the flagship. Most of them lived in the dorms but still seemed to keep pretty much the same social group from high school all the way through college. Some faculty kids had a standing lunch date every week with their parent–I was envious of that.
Didn’t grow up in a college town, but we live close enough to a UW School that if my kids wanted, they could commute.
I doubt any of them will attend the school we live by, but if they were too, I would encourage them to live on campus. I think it’s an experience every college student should have.
We live about a mile from our state flagship. D1 received a full tuition scholarship there and entry into the honors college. She was also accepted into higher ranked universities. We gave her the choice on where to go. She ended up 7,000 miles away on a full ride at NYU Abu Dhabi. Ultimately, she wanted an adventure, and she got it.
D2 didn’t apply to our state flagship, because it didn’t offer the programs she wanted (she ended up about 1000 miles away with a scholarship to art school).
I would really have loved it if they had chosen to go to our state flagship, because I miss them so much. But I am happy that they chose the experiences they did, because they are doing quite well.
Although I can understand your reasoning, I would have found it hard to impose such a restriction. Is a place “home” if there are times when you’re not allowed to go there?
We live 5 miles from the state flagship which is also a nationally-ranked school. If my kid gets in and decides to go she would live in the dorm But she would prefer to stretch her wings. We don’t get free tuition or anything. I went to school on the other side of the country and it was the best thing I’ve ever done.
We live two miles from our state flagship, and my wife works there. We both attended undergrad and graduate school there. Both of our kids have applied there. About 60% of the kids at my younger son’s prep HS attend there too. We don’t get free tuition, just pay regular in-state rates.
Advantages:
- Very good value, in-state tuition, excellent school (top 10-15 nationally in most areas)
- On-campus experience is a lot different than living in town. We saw our older son only occasionally.
- Access to laundry at home. That’s when we see them.
- A bus ride away for vacations, and car access when needed without paying crazy campus rates.
- Option to commute for whatever reason. Our older son did that in undergrad for a few terms.
- Zero debt for them.
- Ranked in the top 5 college towns in the US (usually 1 or 2). How much better can you get?
- Lots of study abroad options. 4-8 mo away from home gives them the independent experience.
For our younger son (now a HS senior), his process is: What is better than the flagship? There are only about 5 schools higher ranked in his interest area and he only liked a few of them. It is making his college selection process a lot easier. Many kids make the decision to go away just for the sake of getting away but I don’t think it is worth an additional $100K over 4 years for OOS tuition.
Our older son is applying to graduate programs and that is very much a ‘best fit’ decision. The flagship is included but he will probably go elsewhere. For undergrad it is not as important.