<p>This question pops up on lots of threads and the overwhelming response is always to insist that sending a kid to college far away is normal and an important step to independence. But, in fact, it’s entirely cultural and almost unheard of outside of the U.S. Millions of young adults around the world live with their parents throughout college and often until marriage, and they grow up to be normal, healthy adults.</p>
<p>I personally enjoyed my time living on a college campus far from home. But it is entirely a luxury, and an artificial, unnatural environment found nowhere else in life, and I don’t think it leads to independence or is a necessary step to adulthood. And the average price of room and board (around $10k/yr) is part of the reason for high college costs and taking on debt. There are pros and cons, but living in a dorm is not considered normal or necessary elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>“My kids would have rather died than go to their local state college - even though the school is strong in their majors”</p>
<p>Just curious - why? </p>
<p>History mom, I respond to whatever comments I find interesting to me and in this case I guess i just don’t understand what the not going away has to do with the social standing of the parents at all if the same money will be spend but more wisely.</p>
<p><<“My kids would have rather died than go to their local state college - even though the school is strong in their majors”>></p>
<p>I don’t know that my kids feel quite this strongly - but probably close. My older son didn’t apply to any schools in TX, even tho UT-Austin has one of the top programs in his chosen field. Of course, he knew his chance of getting in was next to zilch (not top 10%), so he felt it would be a waste of time to even apply. And he had absolutely no interest in TX A&M. So, he applied to only OOS schools, and even tho he will most likely be 1500 miles away from us, he will only be 90 minutes from DH’s family.</p>
<p>In fairness, TX is not “home” to my kids so there is no emotional attachment to staying here. Now, what my younger son will decided to do - who knows! He’s actually looking at Trinity, which is just a couple of hours away.</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, I went away to college but then moved back home to continue my degree at a local college. I knew that was where I would end up because the degree program I wanted was one of the top at the time, but I wanted the experience of living away from home - and it was a requirement of my mother’s. While living at home was nice and cheap, I feel I really missed out on a lot of things. Being a “commuter” was just not the same. I had had the experience of living in a dorm and I missed the friendships, fun, camaraderie , and - yes - mischief, that we got into!</p>
<p>I am a strong advocate of going AWAY to college- even if it is only living in the dorms across town. The money spent is an extremely wise investment. Commuter students miss out on much of value during the after class hours. We couldn’t walk to a friend’s parent’s house and ask for her at 9 or 10 pm- her parents would have been horrified. We spent much time discussing so many things casually after hours- spontaneously. </p>
<p>There is a time to be nurtured by your nuclear family but there is a time to spread your wings and learn about the world outside of your family. This may not seem to make much difference in the uniform cultures of many countries but here there is a vast array of how things are done. College is an ideal time to learn how different families do things- there is never another time in one’s life like it. It in no way diminishes family ties unless the student wants it to.</p>
<p>Ideally a student can leave their home town and see what is the same and different from what they grew up with. They can choose to return to work later. This applys just as much to students generations removed from the old country as is does to recent arrivals.</p>
<p>All immigrants need to realize that by choosing to be in the U.S. they have chosen to raise their children as Americans. There is a great diversity in ways of being an American but there is also a common cultural thread running through all of the country from north to south and east to west that unifies us and separates us from other countries, even Canada. You have not transported a miniUkraine to this country, no matter how much you keep your original culture alive. Be prepared for your child to desire to go beyond%</p>
<p>I agree completely with what happymom wrote. In the community where I grew up, it would have been a horrible social faux pas for anyone in the “upper” class to send a child to a local college (which included a pretty good state university). This wasn’t a matter of rationality, it simply describes the cultural norms. Unsophisticated, lower class parents sent their kids to local colleges, upper class parents (and parents who aspired to have their kids join the upper class) sent them away. Maybe it was a rite of passage: a walkabout, vision quest, or whatever. But in my family’s social circle it was seen as an indispensable part of growing up, even for people who planned to return to the community and to spend their lives there. </p>
<p>Except for college, graduate school, and my father’s Army service, my mother has lived her entire life within a mile of the house where she was born – but she went to college on the other side of the country. HER grandfather had most of his children living on the same block, next door to one another. He was an immigrant, at 15, and never went to college (or high school) himself. His children went to Radcliffe, Vassar, Harvard, Harvard, Wellesley, and Harvard – none less than a 7-hour trip at best.</p>
<p>I had to learn as an adult that it was OK NOT to send your kids away. OK for others, that is. I thought that, for my kids, it was an important part of their education.</p>
<p>A neighbor insisted his D not venture far from home for college because HE wanted to see/play with his grandkids. (Of course, being a 'SC alum, he was delighted that she attended that school.) Four years later, she meets another student at 'SC who hails from another part of the country. Proposal. Marriage. Gone from the nest, 2,000 miles away. :D</p>
<p>A friend of mine grew up in a small town in eastern Nebraska. She loved her life there, and never planned to leave.</p>
<p>Her older brother had gone to Yale, and adopted ideas and a lifestyle of which her parents strongly disapproved. So they forbade my friend to apply to college in the Northeast. Instead, she went to Duke – where she adopted ideas (but not a lifestyle) of which her parents strongly disapproved. She went back to Nebraska for medical school, but took her last year in the East, looked for a residency there, and has not since lived closer to Nebraska than central Pennsylvania. The parents finally got wise, and insisted that their youngest child attend the University of Nebraska, less than 100 miles from home. Since she graduated, that child has barely set foot in Nebraska; her adult life has been spent in NYC and the Philadelphia suburbs (with ideas of which her parents disapprove, of course).</p>
<p>I grew up in India in the 70s. In 1974, I browbeat my parents (maybe browbeat is not the word, but convinced maybe) to let me go away 2000 miles to a remote location in Rajasthan to go to a really great college there. It was considered an elite college even then. I was a young woman and that was a very unusual thing to do or ask of one’s parents. And I wasn’t the only child, I have a younger brother.</p>
<p>Since then, I have led an itinerant existence until my child was born. Now, I wish I could travel a bit more…sort of stuck where I am because of recession, budgetary concerns etc.</p>
<p>I am so glad my parents let me do what I did. I learnt so much about independence, about self-reliance etc. Very hard to duplicate that experience while at home, where we were pretty protected and sheltered.</p>
<p>Going far away to school is done more in the US than other countries but even here it is done by a minority of students … the majoirty of students go to college pretty close to home … maybe not close enough to live at home but a ton go to their local State U (or some other local public school) and a lot of others go to private schools pretty close to home. I do not have the data but I would guess the vast majority of those going to school far from home are either going to top tiers schools or are from at least upper middle class families (not all but a huge %).</p>
<p>To me, it’s it’s not about how far away from home a school is. I know several students from my high school (a private school) who stayed in New Orleans to attend Tulane or Loyola. BUT…very few lived at home - and if they did, they didn’t do it for long. Most lived in either dorms, fraternity/sorority houses, or shared apartments with several friends. </p>
<p>To me, it’s the sense of independence, responsibility, self-reliance, and freedom of LIVING away from your parents/family that is the key.</p>
<p>“History mom, I respond to whatever comments I find interesting to me and in this case I guess i just don’t understand what the not going away has to do with the social standing of the parents at all if the same money will be spend but more wisely.”</p>
<p>For upper middle class and well off people, sending kids far away to college is like when wealthy people used to send their kids to Europe for 6 months to a year to develop sophistication and worldliness.</p>
<p>Man, I had to fight like mad to go away to school. In my case, it meant going to a ‘real’ school with a rigorous curriculum vrs. settling for less, and the hit to my self-esteem that would have entailed.</p>
<p>IMO the people I worked with who commuted all 4 years were a lot more provincial.</p>
<p>So yes, I’d like my child to live close, but not because she couldn’t take it somewhere else.</p>
<p>I don’t think most parents today want to see their child commute to college but sometimes it is the only way that a student could grow up. I was one of those parents that would have been horrified if my kid chose to attend CC or the close 4 year college instead of going away. It took looking at my own child to see that what is good for one or three in our familys case was not good for all. My daughter could not have gone through another year away without further reprecussions. I wish that things could be different for her but I believe that at sometime in the future the end result will be fine. In fact as long as she is happy and healthy than it is fine. Everyone has there own path to follow and I will never again believe that it requires going away to school.</p>
<p>I moved out of my home town 30 years ago for a job opportunity. I see my mother several times a year, and I do not remember a visit when she has not tried to guilt me about leaving – either directly or by commenting on her friends whose children are “good to them” because they take their mothers out to dinner once a week (because they live locally). Her attitude has definitely had a negative impact on our relationship.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with a parent expressing her/his feelings about a major life decision being made by their adult child, and asking the child to take those feelings into account. But it is equally important that the parent accept the decision once it is made, even if it isn’t to her/his liking.</p>
<p>^^^
Has your mother ever considered moving to your town? It took my father 15 years and now he lives a few streets away. He guilted me too years ago and I always pointed out all the positives about our decision but I never held it against him for wishing we were close by.</p>
<p>OMG! The thought is just too much to handle! I don’t think my husband could deal with it! </p>
<p>His mother was the classic “clinging” type (he was an only child)…who wanted him to go to school close to home (he was 3 hours away for undergrad), then come back home and marry and have lots of kids! He loves his mother…but loves her even MORE with her many states away! Shoot…being several continents away was even better!!! </p>
<p>Now…as much as he moans and groans about my mother…he could deal with that MUCH better. He didn’t mind living in New Orleans with her close by.</p>
<p>Actually, the “cling-y” part of his mother is the only thing worrying my son about going to college 90 minutes from where all the family lives in PA. But - as I keep reminding him - she lives in Florida from Oct - April…so he’d only have a few months on either end of the school year to worry about it!</p>
<p>One of the greatest benefits of “going away” to college is losing one’s provincialism, even if the student eventually decides to return to her area of origin. I really want my daughter to experience life in a different part of the country with people different from those she grew up with. I want her to spend a semester or a year abroad. College is the time for broadening your horizons, risk free. You can always move back to your hometown when you’re finished.</p>
<p>My father mentioned the possibility of relocating to be nearer to me a couple of times when he was still living, but my mother is conservative – in the sense of not liking change – so it isn’t something that she ever seriously entertained. </p>
<p>I think it is admirable that you never held the guilting against your father. I haven’t been able to manage it. I think if my mother had ever said “I miss you but I’m glad you’re happy with your life,” I might be more sympathetic. But it has always been about how my choices affected her, not whether they were right for me. </p>
<p>Which gets back to the point that some posters have made about the OP’s concerns. Is it about what is best for her son, or about what she wants? The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but sometimes they might be.</p>