101-500 miles is a huge range. Since we’re rural, many students go more than 100 miles from home, but less than 200. There aren’t many choices within 50 miles, though many students pick those too.
Then that survey is only doing freshmen at 4 year schools. What about those who do 2+2 starting at their local CC? How big of a percentage is that?
It’s definitely true that expanding one’s geographical search can offer more aid though, both merit and need based, so it’s a suggestion I commonly make, esp since our state schools are among the nation’s most expensive. That said, most students and parents from my school stick within 3-4 hours from home.
One little tidbit about Rice. I’ve tried to encourage a few of our top students to consider that one. The name always turns them off. I don’t recall a single one who was interested. It’s not a “known” school here so the name is “odd” (for a college) and it’s far away. There are oodles of others without that hindrance. It shouldn’t make a difference, but it does.
In California, there are about 204k UC undergraduates (including 46k new frosh and 20k new transfers), 429k CSU undergraduates (including 63k new frosh and 54k new transfers), and 1.18 million full-time-equivalent community college students (including 272k new frosh; obviously, not all are on the transfer pathway).
The UCs are mostly residential, but most CSUs are predominantly commuter (far fewer than 74.8% of frosh in the dorms at most of them). The community colleges are also predominantly commuter with very few exceptions.
Anyone know what % of colleges actually require frosh to live on campus? If I recall correctly, all but one of the schools we visited did (the exception claimed it still had about 90% of frosh residing on campus) but the discussion just above makes me think these schools may be the exception rather than the rule.
It may depend on how you count exceptions. For example, SJSU requires frosh to live in the dorms unless they live in a city within 30 miles, or fall into one of the listed non-traditional student definitions, or have unmet financial need and could reduce costs off-campus: http://www.housing.sjsu.edu/housingaz/freshmanoncampushousing/ . The exceptions cover 46% of frosh who do not live in the dorms (54% live in the dorms).
Also, some more residential colleges do not require frosh to live on campus, even though it may be the norm at those colleges.
4-5 hours driving distance as our son had some medical issues and had had surgery during his gap year. Ended up 1.5 hours away and had a car so would drive home on a number of weekends.
D12 went 45 minutes away, which was perfect at the time. Her sibs are 6-8 yrs younger so it allowed her to stay connected. Now she’s married and living 1100 miles away.
D18 picked the school in her sister’s city. It’s nice to hear about their visits and for D18 to have family close. I think the distance has been great for her shyness and independence. I figured it would be sink or swim experience. She wanted a warm weather, urban school and that’s where she is. She loves that it’s 70 this month.
S19 is chasing the best program as m and merit aid. We discouraged but didn’t prevent considering west coast schools. Family is midwest and east.
I am hoping to move east, closer to our girls. We will still be about 20 min from an airport and some of S19’s choices are more convenient than others. It will be interesting!
We did not put any restrictions, but most of D’s apps were in-state anyway. Happily, she is an hour away, which is close enough but far away enough. I do think that if money is tight, you need to be realistic about many plane trips you/your child will be able to do each year. Call it the “total cost of ownership” - it should be a consideration when doing college budgeting.
My S17 wanted to attend college in a city. I put no restrictions distance wise; he did (no further west than Chicago; no further south than DC). S19 put similar restrictions on himself. We were realistic with both boys about how often they would end up coming home and how it related to the cost of coming home. S17 is in school about 5-6 hours away. He makes it home once a semester; we head up to him for U.S. Thanksgiving. (He is at school in Montreal.) S19 will most likely end up about that far away as well. (Fingers crossed.)
@Creekland very true! A co worker of mine grew up on a ranch near Yellowstone and went to the University of Wyoming because it was instate and affordable and it was well over 100 miles away…some people don’t live anywhere near their instate option. Out west a lot of the states are large and only have 1 or 2 universities so many people come from quite a ways to attend their in state school…
I live in California and most of the colleges I’m interested in are on the east coast. My family knows A LOT of people on the east coast and they told me that I should take into consideration being close to a family friend as a form of a safety net. So I guess that counts as preferring a certain location.
Hahaha. I tried to put a location restriction on D1 (must stay in CA, preferably within 1 hr drive) because I was just going to miss her so darn much.
She wanted to go to the Midwest. Not downtown Chicago, mind you, but a rural college. The travel schedule looked like this: drive 30 minutes to our nearest hub, 2 hr flight to Denver, layover, 3 hr flight to nearest airport, 90 minute shuttle ride to campus. Sounded like a nightmare to me but she was in LOVE with this school.
We sent her solo to the college for an accepted students weekend in February. On her return flight, she got snowed in at the Midwest airport-- flight finally cancelled at 1 AM. Stuck in the airport for another hour. Got a taxi and used the airline voucher to get a hotel room-- they almost wouldn’t let her book as she was not yet 18. On top of this, she had no luggage (all clothes and toiletries and CELL PHONE CHARGER in checked).
D1 figured it out and was back home the next day. Handled it like a champ, and snow and isolation notwithstanding, couldn’t stop gushing about the school. That’s when I came around
She’s only come home for Christmas each year-- all other breaks were spent with friends, even freshman year. We have good family friends a little over an hour away if there was some big emergency, but even then I trust the college and D1’s friends to take care of her. She did the same-- took her roommate in to the ER when appendicitis struck during finals week, and stayed with her as much as possible.
Post-graduation, she’s moved even farther away for grad school. We Skype every week and Snapchat every day. It works for us
