<p>Hi,
I am new to CC, but have greatly benefited from reading posts from other parents. Here is the dilemma that I need help with. We live in Northern California. Our son is an above average student who is graduating from a good college-prep HS. To cut to the chase, the one school he liked on our tours last summer was Santa Clara. He wanted to be close to home and wanted a small school. Santa Clara is an hour away. They have offered him $14,300 per year for 4 years and then, of course, we can take out 5500 per year in loans per the financial aid package. We are both willing to pick up extra hours at work to make it possible for him to attend the school with this package. Here's the problem. He does not (adamantly) want to live at school. He wants to go to the school, but he wants to commute. We are talking an hour each way in heavy traffic at times. His other option is Junior college (30 minutes - less traffic) and then transferring. When we ask him why he doesn't want to live in the dorms, his response is " I just don't want to." We know the real reason is the local girlfriend who is going to be going to Junior College. We have told him that if he lives at Santa Clara, he could still come home every wknd and see the girlfriend if he wanted. This morning I did finally get him to admit that he wants to see the girlfriend more than just on the weekends. I should add that we like this girl and her family, so it is not a matter of wanting them to break-up. It is a matter of wanting him to take advantage of the opportunities that are being offered to him. Many people have told us (surprisingly in my mind) to tell him that we are not paying for college if he chooses to go to Junior college. These are people who love him telling us that. Not in my constitution to do that. He is a great kid. Loving, respectful, etc. We have pretty much told him that he has to make a choice between Santa Clara and living on campus or JC. We think the commute situation to Santa Clara is a set up for disaster because of the traffic situation and the fact that every day he would be focused on driving home to be with the girlfriend rather than getting truly involved with activities at school. I guess my question to all of you is whether to break down and let him commute, so he can (will) go to Santa Clara. I am worried, of course, about the 800 million dollars in budget cuts at the California JCs, so I have no idea whether he would be ready to transfer in 2 years. I also am concerned about him going to JC because it means the girlfriend will then be part of his life 24/7. Would the long commute and desire to get home as quickly as possible just make Santa Clara an expensive JC for him. We are really heartbroken about this. We have relatives in San Jose (10 minutes from Santa Clara) and he could definitely sleep at their home on occasions if necessary, but not on a regular basis. Our son asked me this morning that if where he went to college was his decision, then why wasn't it his decision to commute." I said because it was our money we were investing and we had a say as well. We let him say no to all the other schools he got into because Santa Clara was the school he really liked. We are willing to work hard to make it happen for him and we expected him to give a bit as well. Don't think he liked that answer, but we are afraid he is going to choose to give it up and go to JC. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this long post. I just need some input from other folks. Thank you so much for your time.</p>
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I think this is a reasonable choice, and I think you explained your position very well to him.</p>
<p>Mom, let him commute to Santa Clara. There are thousands of students who commute there, not all live on campus. . If the commute becomes a killer FOR HIM then HE can try to find an appt to share with other students. Putting your foot down over this issue will only drive a wedge between you. He has to figure out how to make the commute/ time spent in classes/ doing homework / spending time with the GF work- not you. The most I would do is give him a GPA requirement- if he keeps his grades at a 3.0 then he can stay at SC. Otherwise its time to back off and let him prove that SC, and going to college on his terms, will work for him.</p>
<p>What about staying adamant that he live on campus but just for freshman year. After that, if he still wants to commute, then he can commute. One could assume that he would have given campus living a try and that he would have made at least some other connections that he can maintain during his next years there. Getting up and to an 8 o’clock class from the dorms might put into context what it would be like had he commuted to that same 8 a.m. class. Also, any way to get some support from the girl friend and/or her family on this? If she can honestly also say to him that they could see each other over the weekends and sometimes once or so during the week, skype or video chat daily, etc., this would be a great support. At any rate, it would be interesting to have an open-ended conversation with her about her thoughts for next year, how might she feel if son were an hour away, etc. This would at least give you some information about whether he is getting pressured to attend JC. Santa Clara is hard to get into; if it is affordable for your family, it seems silly to turn it down. They also do prefer that students live on campus the first year, but will assign kids living elsewhere to a dorm for connection. In other words, even if you don’t live there, you are assigned to a residential hall, and you can take part in extracurriculars, study areas, etc. (Perhaps best not to highlight this to your son. However, it makes me think that after one year on campus, a commuting student could well maintain friendships and activities with such support.)</p>
<p>I also think you have given him a reasonable choice. Now he needs to be a man to make his choice. </p>
<p>It is usually not a good idea to choose a school because of gf/bf, more than likely they’ll break before he graduates from college (and here we like to refer to it as the Turkey Drop).</p>
<p>By commuting to college when everyone else is boarding, your son would miss out on a large part of college experience. He is lucky that you are willing to sacrifice to make it happen for him, not that many kids are as fortunate.</p>
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<p>Not at Santa Clara…better than 90% of freshmen live ON campus. It’s not a commuter school by any measure or means. DD graduated from there and even the kids who lived somewhat close by did NOT commute.</p>
<p>I agree…you have given him two reasonable options.</p>
<p>“better than 90% of freshmen live ON campus”
I wasn’t just referring to Freshman. Lots of kids live off campus after Freshman year.</p>
<p>I understand your concerns but I don’t think they’re reasonable (although I’d have the same concerns). </p>
<p>I think if he wants to commute to SC then he should commute. There are literally thousands of people in the bay area who commute an hour or more to work every day and it seems to work okay for them. I think what you’re ending up trying to do is to control some aspects of his lifestyle - not really anything related to the college education.</p>
<p>If your S commutes you don’t know that he won’t stay on campus for events. You don’t know that he’ll rush to his car to head home immediately every day. </p>
<p>If he lives on campus you don’t know that he’ll get involved in campus events. You don’t know that he won’t go see his GF every other day regardless (unless he doesn’t have a car). </p>
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Then allow him to make some of his own decisions on this. Remember that he’s the one going to college - not you. Although you prefer the living at college experience for yourself that’s just not what he wants at this point in time.</p>
<p>If he commutes to SC, assuming he’s never done a long commute before, he’ll learn quickly that it’s not much fun. It’s not fun having to get up over an hour earlier (he needs to allow some time for traffic delays) in the day to get to the first class, he’ll get tired of joining the throng to get home, he’ll not enjoy it when he arrives late for a quiz or test or important material in the first class, and he’ll discover he’s losing 2 hours of HW time each day so squeezing in the time to see his GF will get more and more difficult unless he purposely lightens his load to do so. He may decide after a bit to change his mind and live on or near campus. </p>
<p>So while I empathize with your position and would want all of the things you want for him, I think he should be permitted the freedom to choose this aspect himself and have to live with the consequences of that decision.</p>
<p>I think he needs to live on campus…that commute is too far for a frosh. </p>
<p>Think about it…commuting 2 hours per day, plus school time, means less time for studying/homework…especially if he intends on seeing the GF during the week. </p>
<p>There’s just not enough hours in the school day to go to class, study, commute for 2 hours, AND spend time with the GF.</p>
<p>BTW…altho your son can borrow $5500, you (the parents) can borrow more. You can take out a Plus loan which may help you with cash flow. I wouldn’t completely rely on picking up extra hours at work because you might have some “light months”. I would probably do the Plus loan as a back up in case the overtime didn’t always work out.</p>
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<p>Living off campus as an upperclassmen is different than commuting from home…an hour each way.</p>
<p>ucsd dad is correct. There are thousands of commuters in CA who commute this distance each day…and more. Still…I would not suggest it for a college student who is enrolling at a school where the very vast majority of freshmen live ON campus.</p>
<p>living off campus is not the same as commuting 2+ hrs a day.</p>
<p>I agree that you could require to live on campus only for the freshman year, and let him decide after that. At least it will be an informed decision by then. (Many, many schools require their freshmen to live on campus for that reason…)</p>
<p>What would you think about having him get a dorm room, and telling him that he can spend weekends and up to 2 additional nights at home? I think it’s likely that as he sees how difficult and time-consuming the commute is, and as he becomes more involved with campus life, the nights at home will diminish. There is a good chance that his current relationship won’t even survive his freshman year. Both he and his gf are going to be meeting new people at college. With this arrangement, he will have the dorm room and it will be easy to shift to living at college full-time should he decide to do this during the year.</p>
<p>Another point - you and your spouse are planning to work extra hours to help him with college expenses. Will he be working during the school year? If you’ve decided that he should focus on studies and not work, that’s a legitimate point of view. But if he’s commuting up to 10 hours/week, it is taking as much time as a part-time job, and increasing expenses.</p>
<p>Who is paying for the car, gas, insurance and car maintenance if he commutes?</p>
<p>how long has he had this girlfriend? and how serious do you think they are? If this is a fairly new situation… i would lean towards the santa clara school (i would have a hard time seeing my son change his mind/goals over a new relationship)</p>
<p>the probablility is that they may break up…but if you force the on campus situation…you can be sure that you may be blamed… ie if you had let me commute we would have stayed together. are you willing to deal with that?</p>
<p>if you allow him to commute… i would ask for a few things… during exam weeks he should not be commuting back and forth… due to loss of study time but also exhaustion and driving… my S2 just spent a week of not going to bed until 2am and then up at 7 for classes, i wouldnt want him driving. I think the requirement of a certain gpa is also reasonable… </p>
<p>if it was me, i would probably ask for one year on campus and then it could be re-evaluated.</p>
<p>ETA… just saw ny momof2 post…that seems like a very good idea… and i think she is right…if the relationship does dissolve he is in the best position</p>
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<p>And where would he stay? SCU does not have “rooms” for commuters who want to spend the exam weeks there.</p>
<p>I’m going to guess that driving back and forth (with gas costs as they are and factoring in time as lost time for working) will cost as much as on campus housing.</p>
<p>^^ OP said they had relatives in san jose (10 minutes away) that he could stay at occasionally… i figured that 2 semesters of exam weeks might be considered occasional…</p>
<p>Falling asleep at the wheel during a long commute is a very likely possibility, especially for a college student who isn’t able to get enough sleep during the week, i. e. , pretty much everyone. It happened to my kid, who was doing some late-night/early morning shifts at Starbucks. (Luckily, he was okay, car was not.) So I’d stick with a requirement to live on campus for Freshman year.</p>
<p>It sounds as if your son already allowed the girlfriend to be a huge factor in his college decisions. (I assume that was the reasoning behind wanting a college “close to home”.) I’d say that’s already enough influence for this relationship to have on an 18 year old’s life. Commuting sounds ridiculous to me, and it’s likely that between their class schedules and school work obligations, they would barely see each other during the week anyway. His reasoning is immature, but that’s not a surprise for a kid this age, especially a male. Stick to your guns.</p>
<p>SCU is on quarters so there would be three exam weeks. What about midterms? Almost every class at SCU has midterms and the schedule varies for these.</p>
<p>If there are relatives in San Jose, perhaps the student could stay with them some of the time…that is a thought. </p>
<p>DD had a roommate who lived IN San Jose. She had no Friday classes…she went home every Thursday after classes and didn’t come back until Monday mornings.</p>
<p>William1, I would feel the same as you. The big problem with commuting is he doesn’t get involved in student, doesn’t form any kind of connection with his classmates. There is a lot to be learned at a college outside of class. If he commutes your son is giving this up.</p>
<p>Maybe make it easier for him. Require him to live in a dorm for freshman year and then leave it open to discussion?</p>