I think many kids understand parent values…but there are tons of colleges that likely can satisfy everyone.
We discussed college options with our kids. But we also needed to remember that or kids were going to college…not us parents.
The profs at most universities typically skew liberal on a variety of social and political issues; in the most conservative states, faculty would likely be significantly left of the population as a whole. You may also want to look at the percentage of OOS students; schools with higher percentages of OOS students would like be a better option; adding geographic diversity would likely add more moderate/liberal students to the mix.
The issue of whether to encourage kids to go across the country is a different one, and one I struggle with a bit personally. While i would never require my two younger kids to stay in-state for school (well except for financial constraints), There are real benefits of family proximity - my oldest daughter moved out of state at 18, ended up living in Japan for a few year and then in the NE. Five years ago, she and her family recently moved very close by, and she thinks it the best decision ever; she also wishes they had moved sooner.
Truly, we all benefit so much from the mutual love, support, and practical help of nearby family; it’s just not the same when your relationship is based on Skype and a few visits a year. I realize this attitude seems quite antiquated and limiting, but there are real, long-term trade-offs when family members are thousands of miles apart.
I rarely share these thoughts with my 16-year olds, because I don’t want to limit them, but my older daughter and her husband frequently remind them about the many positives of having extended family near-by and “push” for schools that are a two-to-three hour drive or quick flight away.
“My husband says that if they go the route I’m advocating, then we won’t see them as often and will experience that loss.”
This is what you should be addressing first with your spouse. He already is concerned about what he (and perhaps you and any other children you have) will feel when this first child goes away to college. How far does your husband think is “too far”? How often does he think he/you/you all need to see your child? How does the dollar cost of travel enter into things? How can modern technology help him/you/you all stay in touch if you can’t visit very often in person?
Run the Net Price Calculators at the places that you personally like, and see if there is any chance those places can be made affordable. The numbers might make your decision for you, and your kids will have to stay close to home.
I find noting wrong with trying to influence them (ok, in the ways I think are acceptable.) But I learned when they were young that I couldn’t tackle this head on, needed to be a ittle tangential about it, let them see it for themselves.
They are kids and we are adults, presumably with more earned perspective. It’s not a total loss to go to a college that’s more conservative than you are. But when you’re looking is a great time to explore who your child is and likely will be, and discuss.
My example is UVa. I know it well, adore it, and was tickled D1 did, too. But for her, there was a moment when she realized that, “I’m more a Northerner.” (It wasn’t about the college, but some experiences in the community. Small things that added up for her. In contrast, even liberal, I could happily find my place in the south, for the good aspects.)
This exploration is worth the time, imo.
I’m the child of immigrants, and one parent was also a refugee. Many generations of sudden and not always easy moves in my family history- and those were the lucky ones (the ones who stayed did not survive).
So I have a somewhat skewed perspective on distance- being close is great when it works but it can also be suffocating depending on the family relationships. Being far away is terrible, except when it works great. My parents did not have email, Skype, or anything like that, and nobody could afford long distance phone calls except for funeral notifications; somehow the families stayed close even now into the next generation of cousins and “I don’t remember how we are related but I’m so glad you are here” relationships. We have a stack of telegrams which tell the stories of living far away from home-- quite poignant.
So my thought is to be pragmatic at first- figure out what you can afford and what options are on the table in terms of admissions, the types of programs, academic fit, etc. Then figure out if there are any opportunities on the affordable list which are so meaningfully wonderful that the distance becomes secondary. If you live in Texas but your kid gets into Julliard- to me, that’s a discussion worth having. You live in Montana but your kid gets into MIT- and it looks as though the aid makes it affordable- to me, that’s worth kicking the tires. To fly up from Oklahoma to attend a third tier private college on Long Island which all the locals refer to as a suitcase school (i,.e. nothing happening on the weekends, vacations, etc)-- you’d have to ask why if there are better and cheaper options close to home.
But I’m a child of refugees and immigrants and we sleep with one eye open! The ability to adapt to new languages, new customs, and a new society is what’s helped us survive!
Just saying: there’s a huge difference between far, but near the right airports or direct flights, versus it’s all day, just to get to the home airport. My eye-opener, when D1 was looking at Carleton: TSA, flight to Chicago, transfer flight to Minneapolis, 45 min bus ride (so the rep said) to the campus town, then a taxi to campus.
In contrast, you may be able to fly direct from SC to Seattle. Much easier if your airport isn’t so distant. Different meanings in “far.”
Lots of parents who sent theirs across the country didn’t just wait for them to come home, but also visited them.
Yeah. There was a kid on another thread a while ago whose parents would only allow him to go to a local college, or a Christian one (Catholic didn’t count as Christian so you can figure out the background there). I think that’s wrong, because the kid seemed to just want a good education (his local options were not great), not to rebel against his background, and quite frankly if your faith can’t stand up to alternative arguments then that in itself tells you something…but that’s besides the point. I totally disagreed with the view his parents were taking, because they were imposing their values on him in such a way as to limit what he could do (being financially dependent on them obviously he had to acquiesce). However, if it had been the kid himself looking for all that, with or without the support of his family, then i would have respected his choice irrespective of whether or not I agreed with it, just because it would have been his choice and his values. You gotta cut the apron strings when it’s time, not try turn them into marionette strings.
This student also had financial limits that meant that many of the colleges that were allowed by these parental limitations had very little chance of being affordable.
Start with the financial planning first. Do not paint yourself and your student into a corner by encouraging a list of colleges that end up being too expensive, or applying too broad a brush in pre-rejecting more-likely-to-be-affordable colleges before making a closer investigation.
If you are comparing a public flagship in the South or the Mountain States to one in the Northeast or on the Pacific Coast, I think you are going to see fundamentally similar faculties, and student bodies with all of the same political/cultural/ethnic groups well represented, albeit in somewhat different proportions. Kids who are the only kids who speak up about non-science in biology class in a rural or suburban high school in the South will not be the only such kids at their home-state flagship, not by a long shot. And in any event they are highly unlikely to encounter professors there who do not accept evolution. Certainly not in a biology class, but not in a theology class, either.
That’s not to say there is no value in going someplace else for college. In my family, everyone did that. Some people came back, some didn’t. But having them go to college close does not guarantee that they are going to stay close, either. Or that they are going to be open to seeing you much during college. I have any number of friends whose children have gone to a college they can see from their office windows, and who saw their children during the college years no more than I saw mine, who were both 700 miles away.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please remember that the TOS apply in this thread, also, or it will be closed. And no, I don’t care if the political views expressed are conservative or liberal!
@SCTwinsMom FWIW My family lives in a neighboring state (GA) and we know several kids who are attending or have been accepted to your state flagship honors program. These are all fantastic, bright, outspoken kids who had many good college options. If that might be an option for your kids, it’s definitely worth giving it a good look.
FWIW, my daughter went to a HS that didn’t align with many of our family values (best STEM school academically in our area so that trumped the negatives for her). It taught my daughter to stand up for herself, argue intelligently and calmly, and not be afraid to share her opinion even if she is in the minority.
She’s at a large public flagship in a traditionally conservative state but like most college campuses, she’s now in the majority with her opinions and leanings.
This is a good discussion. We are moderately conservative. In religion we are religious but not like a lot of our relatives or neighbors. My S grew up more conservative politically and fiscally than we are but more liberal socially and my D is more liberal overall. My S is less religious and my D more. We have given them a good foundation and let them discover their own way.
This meant when they graduated hs they were able to make their own choices. We gave opinions but just so they knew where they stood. D ran off with a guy (we gave our opinion that this was not a good idea at all but she had to do it and would not have survived at college). It didn’t work but we hope she learned something (jury still out on that one). Son wanted to go OOS. That was his one big thing. We gave him a budget. We helped research schools and make a long list that met his degree requirements and our financial requirements. He then did research and picked what he was interested in looking at. I was surprised some colleges we though he would want to look at didn’t make his list at all (He did not want to go to the East Coast or West Coast, or be in a huge city).
He visited and found his fit. He is OOS and chose a conservative state (another of his choices was very liberal). It is 11 hours away and I do miss him. We really don’t see him very much but he has grown so much. It is a large school and he has friends with totally different views than he does and has learned a lot from them. His professors are more liberal than the majority of the students but are open to opposing viewpoints. He had a great class in American Ethnic Studies where everyone felt very free to talk about whether they agreed or disagreed with the professor.
If you can afford it have them visit the in state school and some OOS schools and see what they feel fits them best.
Since our kid is more progressive than either of us, our main concern was to make sure that she would go to a school which would challenge and interest her academically, and in which she would find kindred spirits. She is more progressive than we are, so that limitation would likely have been enough, but even there she was in total agreement with us on the matter.
We are in NC and I am very surprised that your children have science teachers that do not believe in evolution. Certainly not our experience and we are close to SC…I do not think your kids would find that at USC or Clemson for sure, both are very good schools I think.
Do your kids go to a small private religious school or the local public HS?
You can also have a very liberal school in the middle of a conservative area. I think UVa is like that but it is large and I don’t think anyone has a problem with the bio teachers exploring evolution.
Smaller schools may have more of an issue interacting with their communities. Colorado College is in a very conservative area. Ideas flow freely in the college bubble, but the media, government, churches, military are all pretty conservative. The state is purple, but Colo Springs isn’t. No one confuses it with Boulder, yet no one would say Colo. College is anything but liberal and open. You’d have to decide how much the community means to you/your kids. Will they want to watch local news and read a local paper or will they go online to national sources? Will they want to join a church community off campus? Are they interested in local or state politics?
As some other posters said I think that this is about your children’s values. I think it is important to point out this issue to your child. My cousins son was gung ho on Norte Dame even though his parents were worried because they are Jewish. His thinking was “ I’m not religious so what does it matter.”
Then they ran into a family friend who graduated from ND a few years before who is also Jewish and told him, “it’s a fantastic school but don’t go there unless you are prepared for the fact that the fact that you are Jewish will often be the thing about you a lot of people are aware of. If you don’t feel comfortable being “the Jewish guy, don’t go”. This would never have occurred to the kid.
Charlottesville had about 80% of its citizens vote for Obama. It is not an overly conservative area.
I wasn’t referring to politics.
I was responding to @twoinanddone .