<p>
</p>
<p>I have all that in my dorm. 
I am actually much better situated here than I am at home. I don’t even have a desk at home, and am not allowed to work at the kitchen table-- my sister is self employed and has claimed that as her desk, and my parents don’t understand why I can’t get work done at home.</p>
<p>“Tell them that you’re 18, fully grown and they need to let you make your own decisions from now on.”</p>
<p>People that are grown pay for things on their own. Babies complain when they get something for free.</p>
<p>@MSFHQsite If you have nothing to add to the discussion, then don’t add anything. Where in my original post does it say that my parents pay for everything I have? I happen to work and get by just fine for my personal expenses. So please, if you have nothing to say, then don’t say anything.</p>
<p>If you’re not paying for college you don’t get to complain about it not being the way you like it. You really don’t. You’ll realize that when you’re older and be really embarrassed with yourself, as I learned from personal experience. XD Though, I really WAS paying all my own college expenses and I am STILL embarrassed!</p>
<p>I’m in college, living in the dorms for my second year. I believe that if you told your parents about how much easier it is to study with people if you’re already super close and how much quality time is wasted in the commute, they might see your side. Commuting is stressful, unless you’re partying, it seriously cuts into the study time you would have had you not had to commute. My roommate used to commute, and she nearly failed her second semester because by the time she got home, she was too exhausted from the long drive to even consider homework. A college campus is designed for students to live comfortably (except the nasty dorm food) and to be successful academically. It’s a great chance to meet people, and you could always move off campus after your first year. The first year is not terribly academically intensive usually because it’s more about getting to know people and getting to know what college is really about. Dorm life is a fantastic way to meet people, learn the ins and outs of your campus, and to get involved with activities.</p>
<p>Housing at Drexel is $3900/semester</p>
<p>2hrs/day, ~ 75 days a semester = 150 hrs.</p>
<p>Lets say you value your time $20/hr, that’s $3000.
Gas, at 80 mi day and 20mi/gallon = 4 gallons @ $3 = $12/day = $900</p>
<p>Thats $3900 right there. </p>
<p>If you need to include board, you can include calculations on how living on campus may increase your GPA by .1 point, which will increase lifetime earnings by X/dollars a year and that should do it.</p>
<p>“@MSFHQsite If you have nothing to add to the discussion, then don’t add anything. Where in my original post does it say that my parents pay for everything I have? I happen to work and get by just fine for my personal expenses. So please, if you have nothing to say, then don’t say anything”</p>
<p>Good example of a childish tantrum!</p>
<p>"
Lets say you value your time $20/hr,"</p>
<p>that’s pretty nice</p>
<p>Can you go to a college further away than Drexel? This way you have to dorm…</p>
<p>I’m currently a senior; my college is an hour away too, I commute now but I did live there my first three years. I understand that you want the college experience, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You can live at school and have fun (without going overboard) and still get good grades. </p>
<p>Can you take out loans yourself? Also, if your parents won’t give in, know this: my friend commuted all 4 years and still went to parties and had a boyfriend. Parties are usually Thurs-Sat. She would go to Friday and/or Saturday parties and stay over in a friend’s dorm. You can still stay late on campus- you do not have to go home right after class. Even late, the hour drive isn’t too bad (there’s no traffic at night! lol). I do hope you end up getting what you want as everyone deserves the college experience if they want it. Try to take our loans, if you’re willing to do so. Good luck.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all of the five pages of posts so if someone already brought this up, sorry:
Have you suggested living on campus just one year, freshman year? This is the year that people join the activities they will be in while they are in college, the year they tend to make most of their friends. Tell your parents that if you can live on campus freshman year you will be happy to live at home the next three. And then earn money/borrow money to pay for the one year of room and board. (This might help: You will save on gas, etc., and your parents will save on their grocery bill.)</p>
<p>There could be many reasons why this parent is not in favor of dorming. My husband and I were not sure my daughter was ready to live on her own at the age of 17 and sadly she wasn’t. She was home after the first year. Parents often have a keen sense of their kids readiness to succeed on campus. For my daughter it was all about the fun and we knew we threw alot of money away. </p>
<p>To the OP…Are you displaying maturity at home? Are you taking care of your personal business, making your own appointments, clean room, helping out around the house while keeping up with your grades? Do your parents need to wake you in the morning? Do you show signs of being overwhelmed when you have alot of work? Do you procrastinate? If you don’t have a curfew would you stay out all night and blow off school, part time job, or other responsibilities? </p>
<p>Before providing advice as to how or why you should be living on campus next year I think about it the other way around…What have you done to prove that you should live on campus? A college education is a gift but living on campus is a perk that may or may not come with the gift.</p>
<p>If I had a chance to do it over again I would have told my daughter to borrow the money for her off campus experience…she should have had alot of skin in the game that first year. I don’t know if it would have changed anything but at least she would have seen where HER money went because of her decisions. </p>
<p>The person who valued a highschool students time at $20.00/hr does not realize that HS college kids who have no specific skills, do not make $20.00 an hour.</p>
<p>not sure if this has already been suggested … but what about community college for 2 years? that way it would be closer to home, commuting would not be out of the ordinary, and you could work part time to fund your on campus housing for 2 years of a four-year college</p>
<p>It’s time to learn to GET A JOB son. </p>
<p>Living independently means paying your own bills, not living off your parents. Your parents are right in the measure that they are only trying to teach you the realities of life. </p>
<p>If you want the luxuries of living on your own, figure out a way to finance it. Nobody on this board is going to be able to empower you to find a job. You should understand that you will have to sacrifice the “social life” to cater to your financial needs. MANY students work full-time and take full-time course work (I worked 2 jobs throughout engineering school). Independence is gained independently, hence the term. Adults need to deal with work-life balance and the best way to learn that is to be forced to learn it. Bravo to your parents for toughening you up a bit. </p>
<p>You should also understand that your parents come from Soviet Russia and their social values are not equal to yours. Read up a bit on how they grew up and you may understand why they may pressure you to stay @ home.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well put. I lost a dear goddaughter at age 19, but not under these particular circumstances. She was away living at a college and died as a passenger in a drunk driving accident. But she did live off campus in that city, and I always wondered if it would have happened had she lived ON campus.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I was tempted to write something similar to the OP as I would feel commuting after long days for a young person, especially in winter, would concern me as a parent. Financially, I feel the value of the degree to be far more important than the financial drain of owning a car…students will have the rest of their lives to thow money at that moneypit ;)</p>
<p>If you are paying for college yourself then I do not see why you are asking your parents permission for anything. Go live on the dorm and pay for it. </p>
<p>If they are paying for your education they have a say in how much it should cost. An hour is not a long commute and you could always take the train. You can still network, hang out, join groups, etc, you just cannot party and live on campus. </p>
<p>Lets be blunt. You are going to Drexel which is a decent school, but not Harvard. You can get a great education and come out debt free or you can live on campus and have debt. In this job market I would want to be debt free. Racking up a ton of debt at Drexel is going to cause you to have a negative ROI. </p>
<p>Drexel is also in a so so area. I wouldn’t be fighting to live on campus if I were you. </p>
<p>Life sucks, it is not fair, booo hoo. The sooner you suck it up and move forward with the most sensible options the sooner you will be an adult. You could be like a lot of kids who have to join the military or work right out of high school. A dose of humility would do you some good.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your college would be like but I know my son sometimes has classes that ended after 10:00 p.m. along with classes that started early in the morning. That makes a very long day. I am glad he doesn’t commute.</p>
<p>I’m from a Philadelphia suburb as well and have a few friends at school at Temple and Drexel. Have you asked your parents if instead of commuting you could go home on the weekends? It is the best of both worlds, you get the dorm experience but still have family time and your parents comfort of you being home.</p>
<p>From a purely pragmatic standpoint, here are some things I told my mom when she suggested me to commute to school. The school in question was Bentley university in MA, and the distance was 45 min of driving. </p>
<p>So first, I’m working on the assumption that there would be 3 trips a week to school and 7 months of school. This comes out to 21 weeks of school a year or 63 trips a year. </p>
<p>gas money: 63 trips x 2 ways x 30 mi / 25 MPG X $3 a gallon= $453 in gas
wear and tear on car depreciation: 3, 780 mi *22.1 cents/mi = $835 (22.1 cents per mile comes from studies done by AAA and assumes mid sized car)</p>
<p>Since I am going into business, I threw some business concepts at her. </p>
<p>The opportunity cost of wasting 1.5 hours a trip, meaning if I could have spent the time driving working at my minimum wage job: 1.5h x 63 trips x $10/hour = $945</p>
<p>So the true cost is at least $2,233, which is the BARE MINIMUM. It’s very likely you will have to drive back to school every once in a while to meet somebody/ get something you forgot. Not to mention, I would waste more time than just 45 min because I have to prep for that trip, and might run into traffic. Also, all that driving increases your chances of getting into an accident, which would certainly bump the cost way up. </p>
<p>So for you, having to drive 1hr, the costs are probably close to double. Yes, they do not probably equal room fees, but once you see the true costs, the difference is not as huge as once thought. </p>
<p>And obviously, as many have probably said, the most important thing is you miss out on being part of the campus life and experiencing life on your own.</p>
<p>My parents didn’t give a crap about what I was missing out on. What made the difference was the more limited access to study groups, tutoring, and office hours (require extra trips to campus), the cost of all that gas, and whether or not my 1997 grand am would survive two years of that kind of mileage. Mention “the college experience” within earshot and they will bust out laughing. I think people make the mistake of assuming that parents have the same priorities that children do.</p>
<p>I’m in [mostly] the same predicament you’re in.</p>
<p>At first, my dad wouldn’t let me dorm either… but I told him this is my life and if I need to dorm to get the college experience and succeed in college, then I will. He got mad for about a month and then got over it and realized he was wrong.</p>
<p>Perhaps your mom will also have my dad’s reaction… idk. That’s all the advice I can give you.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>