I went to high school in the same town as the first college I attended. It’s a great private school, has division 1 sports, a beautiful campus and a fine academic reputation. However, when I attended, there was not enough on-campus housing and local students could not live on-campus. It wasn’t likely that I could have afforded to live on-campus anyway, but it wasn’t even an option. I knew within the first two months that I would transfer, and I did at the end of the year. It wasn’t the school, per se, that was the problem - it was living at home, commuting by train to campus and feeling disconnected from the campus and the students who lived there. I found another school 2 hours away for which I could afford both tuition and room and board, and I transferred. Best decision ever. I am positive that had I lived on campus, I would have stayed at my first school and loved it there. I don’t think my world was broadened by going 2 hours away, but it was by living on my own away from my family. Whether that was 15 minutes or 2 hours away wasn’t what mattered, IMO.
I live in a college town. Neither of my kids wanted to attend the local university. My daughter wanted to go out of state, and did not want to find herself in a college classroom sitting next to kids from her high school. In other words, she wanted a fresh start socially. In any case her preferred specialization in art pulled her elsewhere. We didn’t resist her preferences even though the costs were a lot higher.
My son would have attended another state university in our state, but not the local one, if his alternatives hadn’t worked out.
Money and convenience were not significant factors in the college search for either one of them.
Here’s an anecdote from my son’s college. On the day he arrived on campus in the Fall, we hung around for a while to deal with banking and administrative matters. While we were standing in line for some registration matter, my wife overheard two first-year girls talking excitedly to one another. They had evidently attended the same high school. One of them looked around and carefully surveyed the few dozen other people in the room and suddenly exclaimed to her friend, “Isn’t it WONderful? Nobody knows us here!!!”
Another thing to consider: Does it matter to you if they go out of state for college and never come back to live? You may have no say one way or another, but you can stack the deck in your favor. I was the first in our family to leave our southern state in about 200 years. No way my kids or grandkids will ever live there. I am about ready to give my shares in the family cemetery to some cousins who stayed put.
My kid #1 attended our state university and then moved to the opposite side of the country immediately after graduation and has lived there ever since.
My kid #2 went to an out-of-state college but then got a job in the metropolitan area where we live for the first three years after graduation. (She has since moved elsewhere, though.)
Maybe they’re atypical, but my point is that going to a local college is no guarantee that a student will stay in the local area after college. And going away is no guarantee that they won’t come back to the area where you live.
I live about 40 miles from the school that I now have 3 degrees from (BS, MS, MBA) and my son’s dad (also an alum) lives right in the college town and that’s where DS spent many weekends while growing up.
DS didn’t even apply there primarily because it didn’t have the major he was interested in, but also because he wanted the opportunity to spread his wings and definitely didn’t want to be so close to both his parents. (When he was looking at schools I joked that he wasn’t applying there because had nightmares about living on campus and having one of his parents show up for a visit unannounced).
I strongly encouraged him to look at schools in completely different environments. I told him, ‘this is your chance, you’ve got 4 years to try out something different… we live in a small town, do you want to see what it’s like in a big city, we live in the Midwest, do you want to see what it’s like on the east coast or west coast. Try it out for 4 years and it can help you decide where you want to look for jobs later.’
He’s now in his 4th year at school 500 miles away and I’m glad he made the decision to experience a different environment. Maybe he’ll return to this area when he graduates, maybe he’ll stay where he is, maybe he’ll try something entirely different… Doesn’t really matter to me so long as he earns enough to support himself and is happy with his choices.
One stayed, one left. The one who stayed did live in a dorm and then in an apartment. She liked “going off to college” but still being in familiar surroundings.
Marian: I definitely agree. No guarantees on anything with our kids. We can only do our best and hope.
One of my friends is kind of heartbroken his kid just sold a 10 generation family farm. My friend is spending his retirement years on another family farm after going off to HYP for his education and never coming back home except for visits, though he says he felt in his heart he never really left. However his kid, raised elsewhere, has no ties whatsoever to the land. Friend is probably donating the rest of his land to some sort of conservation group rather than leave it for the grandkids to sell.
For some reason, based on his posts, I could imagine Earl finds himself in a similar situation. I don’t know what “away to college” means to Earl. Starkville? LSU? or someplace way more far flung?
I don’t know if it matters when we lose our connection to the land, or if southerners leave home and don’t return. “Go Set a Watchman” sort of addresses that question. My kids have zero connection to the land. That is sad to me. If I could have seen 40 years out, I might have made different decisions, but who knows? That is the only reason for my post.
We live 10 miles from Texas Tech. My daughter hopes to go at least 5 hours away from home. Hopefully there will be merit money available. Or the choice is Texas Tech and live at home. We can’t afford the money for room and board when the school is 10 miles away.
@alh Your friend’s son probably made an outstanding decision in selling the farm. Crop prices have been falling, and with dropping oil prices they are going to fall some more. It seems that crop land is always about a year or two behind the prices, but it will fall. Rather than just give the farms away he ought to put them in a trust with instructions that the land be rented, with the profits going to the grandchildren and their heirs. That keeps it in the family for about 150 more years, or if he creates the trust in South Dakota, forever.
Away “to college” for me really means any major school that isn’t three miles from my front porch. I grew up in a small town where I had lots of relatives and knew and know everyone. We decided to live 30 miles south so we could get free schooling, but the downside is my children really haven’t grown up around the family other than first cousins and such, not to mention the family friends. My son will not stay in Mississippi; my daughter, maybe so.
Most Southerners have a pretty good attachment to their area, but I’m not sure they are in love with the “land” like the farmers in the Midwest. Our world doesn’t end if we sell one piece of land and buy another, but people vary. I come from a family of land traders. We have a very strong sense of place, though.
Sorry folks- didn’t read most post. I grew up under ten miles from our top flagship. Desperately wanted to leave town but finances meant the local U. It was a world apart- lived in the dorms . A friend walked to campus and missed so much after hours stuff.
Staying or leaving town depends on the caliber of school. Definitely need to leave home for campus. I find the mention of the Greek system interesting- it is not on the radar of over 90% of UW students, then and now.
Getting the experience of leaving town for a comparable U then transferring back can be a way to widen one’s horizons. At least the world came to me with class and dorm-mates from the state, country and world.
The most important thing to me is leaving home and living on campus. Make it work financially. If the budget dictates being a commuter after that experience, so be it. Do not choose the local school for convenience- choose the college that best fits academically and socially.
While it is typically desirable for frosh to live on campus at a non-commuter school, there are often budgetary and other constraints that constrain most students to commuting to local schools. The sample population of these forums is not really representative of the overall population of students going to college. Most traditional college students in the US are not top-end students who will gain admission to good-financial-aid schools or get big scholarships at less selective schools, and do not have parents with enough money that the added cost of living on campus is a trivial matter (note the other thread about increasing meal plan costs).
I grew up about 45 minutes south of Boston, and I didn’t apply to any schools in MA. I could not wait to get out and see the world. Which was not a typical mindset of my peer group at that time (middle and working class-they are all still in MA except for one cousin who also went global).
Our kids will most likely apply to UGA, GA State, and GA Tech as safety financials (hope scholarship), but I’d be really surprised if they chose them-they also want to get out and go different, although they do seem to be drawn towards colleges that are culturally diverse, along coastlines and not the midwest.
As for us, we’re anxiously waiting for them to go to college so we can downsize and explore for a while (stayed put here in Atlanta for decades to give them consistency), so our roots are not in one place at all. It will be interesting to see if they inherited my and H’s restless souls, or find a place they want to stay put.
We live in a college town with two illustrious LACs and the state flagship which is highly respected, has a great honors college, and a wide variety of excellent academic programs. Two prestigious women’s colleges are within a ten mile radius. Neither of my DDs applied to any of them. Their comment was that they did not want to run into their parents at the pizza place downtown, and both wanted to live in an urban environment instead of a small town where everyone knew their name. I think they also did not want to be the “townies” at college, since they had already spent 4 years as the token “townies” as day students in their high school, which was primarily a boarding school. They both ended up in the city a few hours away and love coming home to visit.
I grew up next to a major flagship university and hated the idea of going to college near home. So I went to the opposite coast for college and loved it. Our son had the opportunity to attend the excellent university where I now teach, but he too felt strongly he wanted to get away from home, though in his case a few hours away felt far enough. Ultimately, we left the decision up to him as long as the finances worked out to be roughly comparable.
Of course budgets dictate choices. I do feel strongly about families finding a way to allow for spending the freshman year on campus. I was on a really tight budget and understand not having much. But- the experience of being on campus that first year is irreplaceable. For average college students this could mean going to a less costly and less prestigious state school away from the flagship u hometown. For those with an elite flagship close to home- find the money somehow. I can’t imagine a top tier college where the same restaurants are frequented by students and one’s family- guess I’m used to bigger cities than small towns with flagships.
I grew up in a town with an excellent college. I chose not to apply and ended up at a school 2 1/2 hours from home. My feeling was that I wanted to be close enough to go home for a long weekend, but not close enough that I was going to bump into my kindergarten teacher or my mother’s best friend while buying booze or contraceptives. I wanted the freedom to be a typical foolish college student without having to worry about who was watching.
However, being a residential student at a mainly commuter school is probably less valuable (and may be undesirable in some ways) compared to being a residential student at a mainly residential school. Of course, if the school is a mainly residential school, it is generally desirable for frosh to live on campus, if it does not break the budget.
My parents both grew up in Hyde Park, met as undergrads at the University of Chicago, and still live three blocks from campus. They are well-traveled people with friends all over the world. The big question is whether the university offers everything they want. If it does, then I don’t think it’s necessary to spend three times as much to go to, say, Auburn, just because it’s a new scene. There’s always the option of a semester or year abroad.
I live about 2 miles from my state flagship, I run through campus sometimes, and the apartment complex by my house is home to mainly grad students.
In my school is normally split about 60/40. A majority of people want to get as far a way as possible, while a decent amount want to stay here. Yet I have never heard of someone staying and going to the flagship and commuting from home here, it’s just not something that happens.
Now it is one of the best public schools in the country, so unlike a lot of state flagships, admission is far from a sure thing.
I’ve lived here my whole life, and this school is my top choice. Many of my friends think I’m crazy, while I see it as: why leave if I love it here? I know so many people who have stayed, and many say it’s a totally different experience than growing up.
Exactly!