@uwalummom
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It's easy for his friends to say he should choose Iowa State when they will all be able to come home for a weekend whenever they want to. Son would not have that option. <<
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so stay on campus every weekend and have fun with your new Cyclone friends.
personally i would choose ISU but I like big public state U’s with lots of resources and opportunities. it sounds like there are a number of travel options but if you do have to pick him up, it is a trip that is completely doable in 1 day. maybe you can spring for a flight once or twice a year with the $ you would save.
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All of his friends are going to school close to home. <<
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well, he can hang out with them Christmas break and summer. part of college is weaning yourself off of HS and making new friends and enjoying a new environment.
now if he really loves Marquette and Milwaukee then $24K in loans isn’t all that bad. but Iowa State debt-free? and it’s basically a 1-day drive (admittedly a long day, but still). gosh, the way you have presented it, it would be hard for me not to go with Iowa State.
It’s great that he want to stay in touch with his HS friends, but they may not be coming home much, either. Many kids spend every weekend at school–because they have a job, or lots of school work, or just because it’s fun. If mid-semester break is just a day or two, they don’t go home then, either; it’s a good time to catch up on schoolwork and sleep.
Maybe a couple of friends would visit him occasionally, like for a football weekend road trip? Kids from here who stayed local for college sometimes head for Penn State and West Virginia (3-1/2 and 4-1/2 hours from here) to visit.
Note: I am biased, because:
- My kids are/will be too far away to make it home for anything but Thanksgiving, winter break, and (sometimes) spring break). Sure, I wish I could see them more often; but you might be surprised at how much texting helps.
- My son just decided on big, rural OOS U for business instead of medium, urban midwest Jesuit school (not the same schools as your son, but weird, right?). I was leaning toward the Jesuit school for a lot of reasons, some of which you mentioned earlier–but now that he’s decided, I am fully on board with State U.
I have actually learned to enjoy the long drives (10 hours each way) for Kid 1 and hope to for Kid 2 (7 hours each way). Even if they sleep for a good chunk of the ride, that’s still a lot of time for uninterrupted talk. Same thing that I enjoyed about college visits: teenagers–even boys–if trapped in the car long enough with Mom’s classic rock playlist, will talk.
An anecdote: We have family in suburban Milwaukee. One nephew is a business major at ISU and loves it. He wanted a big state school but thought UW was too close. His younger brother didn’t want a big school and liked Marquette, but thought it was too close; he ended up at U Dayton, also for business and also very happy. Different kids, different fits – but both consciously chose to be farther away from home. (And lest you think that the four of us are just rotten parents 
whose kids can’t wait to get away from us–we all get along really well with our kids).
Your S has some really nice options, and seems like he can’t go wrong with either choice.
It is actually very easy for your son to come up with $6,000 a year. My daughter works part-time in a lab on campus (she started at $10 an hour), and full-time in the summer. She makes about $10,000 a year that way. Some students apply to be resident advisors in the dorms on campus and get free housing that way (after freshman year). Depending on the major, some interns make quite a bit of money in the summers – $15/hour and up, or $5,000 for the summer plus housing included. There are also scholarships that can be applied to throughout the years at a university. I wouldn’t worry too much about the extra cost if Marquette was a better fit for your son, as long as he was committed to doing something to address that extra cost rather than just graduate with a lot of debt.
But I agree with your comment on Iowa State – I’ve only heard really good things about it. The choice needs to make sense though. Transportation back and forth to Iowa State isn’t free, even if you drive – there is gas, possible hotel a night so you don’t drive it all in one day, etc. Look into the megabuses though. My daughter took a megabus from Minneapolis to Des Moines in the past, and I know they travel the whole upper Midwest region, including Madison, because another friend of ours used to take the megabus from Madison to Minneapolis. The megabus was also extremely cheap!
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It is actually very easy for your son to come up with $6,000 a year. <<
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if he did this at ISU he could graduate with $24K in his bank account
Thank you! I truly appreciate all of your supportive comments and input.
I did hear back from Iowa State about transportation options:
“Ride boards or personal connections are going to be the only really efficient ways for your son to get to and from Madison if he doesn’t have his own car.”
I also looked up the Megabus,and they stopped service in Iowa January of this year. Thank you for the suggestion though.
@LuckyCharms913
<< My son just decided on big, rural OOS U for business instead of medium, urban midwest Jesuit school (not the same schools as your son, but weird, right?). I was leaning toward the Jesuit school for a lot of reasons, some of which you mentioned earlier–but now that he’s decided, I am fully on board with State U.>>
Wow! Now that is a coincidence - it’s the exact same situation! Thank you for sharing your experiences 