Hi parents! I am a junior at a Canadian semi-decent college, and have lived through both living at home for college, as well as moving out! I find that this topic is often rehashed among students, but that parents are often not given enough perspective even though they are a key component of this decision! Here is my perspective on the whole experience, although I should state the obvious: this is a perspective based on opinion, and by no means backed by facts, nor is it applicable to all situations. As I am slightly biased towards leaving, I am offering a perspective on the “benefits” of staying at home, although I will still highlight the true benefits.
Pros (and my experiences related to them)
[li]Saving money on living expenses: Indirectly, particularly if you are considering contributing to your children’s living expenses, this is true. Depending on the college’s location, rent is very expensive in big cities. However, this does keep an additional mouth to feed at your home, as well as involving you in their daily expenses. This will also slow down their desire to work during the school year, as they will not be as pressed to find income to sustain themselves. I would seriously consider talking to them about taking a gap year to work full-time, save money, and then move out.[/li][li]You’ll be able to keep an eye on their study/social/work/life balance: From what I’ve seen, I would strongly recommend not considering this an advantage, nor will it stay that way. Students will do just as they did in high school: lie (either white, or blatant), and slowly stop caring about your imposed curfews, rules, and objections. Nevertheless, they may be less inclined to partake in more casual social outings like spontaneous dinner plans, rather than limiting their “adult” social events like parties.[/li][li]It will avoid the distraction of roommates, and house matters: While this is true, you would be surprised as to the time they waste commuting, as well as spending time with their family, whether it be via errands, family events, or simply long night talks about life, careers, and the future in general. College housing also allows them to learn to be independent, and street-smart.[/li][li]I want them to stay home until they get a job/married/something else: I am not going to delve into the cultural/religious implications of this statement, but you should discuss your child’s perspective of such an implementation. An open mind could be the difference between them renouncing their religion, or learning to balance their choices and their religious/cultural backgrounds.[/li][li]College is just a degree, it’s just to get them a good job: No, that is a trade school. This is incredibly false and overstates the value of a college degree. A simple college degree shouldn’t be seen as a guaranteed job offer, but rather a preparation period with regards to learning abilities, the establishment of the professional network, and discovery of professional interests.[/li][li]They can go away to a good school for graduate studies: This is quite potentially the worst argument for staying at home. A lot of parents will (whether they are aware/admit it or not) want their children to attend post-undergraduate studies, more specifically professional programs such as medicine, or law. To put it simply, the odds of your child becoming a doctor, or lawyer is very slim and will require a lot of patience, and efforts on their part. This includes grades, but schools now pay a lot more attention to your extracurricular involvement, whether it be work, university associations, and interests, which are ideal for someone living within the proximity of college culture. Furthermore, not only should you never force a career path on a student, but you should expect their interest to change, as this shouldn’t be seen as a failure but simply change. You cannot expect excellence from the start, and forming a college path from this expectation is extremely risky, and quite immature on both their part and yours. Along with that, your child may realize that they do not want to go to graduate school, and so they should aim to attend the very best university that can be afforded, because it may be the last degree they get.
Cons (and my experiences with them)
[li]Commuting: Commuting long distances, from inconvenient locations, can lead to class skipping, lack of involvement in school activities, as well as a missing on opportunities such as extracurricular professional expansion (recruiting sessions, research, jobs). In my opinion, a commute greater than 20 minutes should be a deal breaker, as you simply cannot expect them to do anything with that time. If the commute is greater than 20 minutes, I would talk to your child about moving closer to school, or taking the steps to buy them a car. [/li][li]School name: For the vast majority of students commuting, their hometown does not host an “elite/target” school. Provided your child is admitted to an elite school and is debating staying home to attend a local school, you shouldn’t underestimate the name of the school which they attend. Firms recruit locally, and at top programs, and this should be a topic to understand. It is incredibly hard to reach for top-ranking internships/positions/opportunities, and even more so when your child may to applying from a non-target school for whichever industry they are in. Statistically, you are most likely living near an average school, and this may drastically change your child’s chances of reaching their objectives.[/li][li]School fit/pride: Happiness is a key component of performance, whether it be school, work, or otherwise. You are yourself fully aware of this fact. It is easy to say that a university is just a place to study, and work, but this will severely be affected by your child’s happiness. Please make sure that, if your child is considering commuting to school, that they have visited the local schools, and it feels like this school is a great fit. Furthermore, if there is a school they love, I can guarantee that their transcript will reflect the enthusiasm.[/li][li]Relationship with family: A major component of a lot of teenagers’ progression is the famed teenage rebellion where ingratitude, entitlement, and arguments become common words around the house, as well as the improvement of the familial relationship post-high school. I noticed that this is often more significant among the students who leave town for college, as the distance makes them realize what they took for granted. If your child stays home, please do expect a slower transition, and potentially even a worsening relationship as they may resent you to funnel their regret of staying home, keep taking your cooking for granted, and keep making mistakes such as damaging the house. Again, it eventually gets better albeit it may take until graduation potentially.
Finally, as a concluding statement, I would just like to highlight one concept: regret. You know your child better than anyone else. I urge you to listen to their ambitions and dreams. By listening, I do mean letting them express themselves, rather than attempting to change their goals to fit your desires. College choice DOES matter, as your child will most likely excel in a situation which they are happy with: some will prefer to stay home since they live in a huge metropolitan area, others dream of the college town with a spread out campus. Others are driven by prestige and want to attend a target school in order to ascend to Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Please look at them in the eyes, and let them talk about the decision that will cause them the least regret. I have felt and seen firsthand what college choice regret feels like. It leads to people dropping out of school, having bad grades, and generally being unhappy.
Moderator’s note (3/25): Formatted for ease of reading.
I disagree with @wis75. I enjoyed reading your post very much. As a parent, sometimes it is nice to be able to see the perspective of a student. Thanks for your post!
Sounds like you are not happy with your situation, which I am guessing is that you didn’t get to go away to college? Are you sitting at home kicking doors and punching walls? I have four kids and the first is at a top college working her butt off to achieve her goals (thanks to merit aid). The other three may not get to go away to college like she did. It’s not a one size fits all situation for many families. There’s a good chance one or more of her siblings will end up being a commuter. I don’t expect them to sit home and resent me and destroy my house because of what college situation they end up in. Obviously most kids would love to just pick their favorite college and leave home and do their thing, but that just isn’t reality for everyone. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and go with the flow and hope for the best! Or take more control of what you can and make a path for yourself that is more fulfilling.
I have mixed feelings about this. Emotionally healthy adults can generally make the best of a situation even if it’s not their first choice. Sometimes there are limitations on what parents can offer their kids in terms of college options for a variety of reasons.
Obviously you are not a fan of commuting. Every pro you listed you turned into a con. I don’t think you can overplay the difference between graduating college debt free vs. having debt because of a need to have an on campus living experience. The options for whatever you want to do post college are much broader without that debt. From grad school, to start up company, to peace corp, to relocating without many funds, etc. I also don’t think one should over estimate the name of the college you do attend. Having parents well prepared for retirement/educating siblings is a gift you won’t reap the benefits of possibly for many years, but trust me when I tell you it’s not fun when a parent is forced to retire due to health issues without having their retirement covered or caring for elderberry parents struggling with finances. And frankly, teens mature at different rates. Not every 18 year old is ready to launch off completely independently and ready to fly. The teens that struggle in that direction often aren’t necessarily introspective about it because they don’t have that level of maturity.
Living on campus is a luxury some students get to enjoy. But it’s hardly a necessity. On the flip side, I don’t think students often think through all the ramifications of spending that extra money. Thanks for sharing your perspective, it is interesting reading from the student side. But I also think it is important understand the vast majority of parents are doing the absolute best for their kids with the resources and tools they have available to them at any particular time. Sometimes that involves setting some limits and making hard decisions.
Neither of my kids could study their chosen major at the local school.
My D could have taken the first year of prerequisites maybe, and my son a few gen eds, but he would have been behind on his music classes.
What we did to try and reduce costs is, they applied to instate public schools where they could get merit, applied for local scholarships they qualified for, worked, and took some loans.
to be (though presumably you meant university as colleges in Canada are generally 2 year diploma granting institutions).
I think there are more criteria to consider when choosing whether or not to live on campus or at home. With my 2 kids the older one will definitely live away. The younger one most likely will not (or at leas will attend closer to home). None of it has to do with our desires as parents or finances.
In my opinion, I think no student should stay local for college, let alone at home. Personally, students who stay closer to home really miss out on a real education. College is a time to explore the unknown, travel, and discover what you truly love. How can anyone do that just by staying in their comfort zones. Successful individuals, in this day and age, arent the type of people who can just regurgitate information and stay in their comfort zones. They are individuals who are creative, innovative, and take risks. In a way, they leave home as a place but also never leave home because they bring home wherever they go, home being their vision of a better tommorow. You learn so much about culture, the world, and you experience so much when you leave home as a place. I took an internship alone for 2 weeks in a school of medicine in Mexico, and it was the best time of my life, never had I missed home because I felt right at home where I was. I would encourage every student to travel as far as possible, if financial possible that is, and experience the world for themselves, that would weight more than any education you can get from books.
As Indiana Jones would say: “If you want to be an archaeologist, you gotta get out of the library.”
Sleep away college is a real indulgence that outside of tie rarefied CC community, most kids don’t get to choose.A UC might cost $12000 to dorm in a TRIPLE with a meal plan LOL. Can you imagine 3 in a room? And paying $48000 over 4 yrs for that?
If I were the student, I would go to school as far away from home as possible if my parent said this. Cut the cord, time to let little Johnny grow up on their own.
I think you hit the main points. In our family’s situation, the momentum was to go away to college. The schools that all of my kids attended, their classmates, their friends, all tended to go away to school. Both DH and I had gone away to college. So the expectation was there to spread their wings and leave home, and make lives of their own without parental intervention…except for funding and if they ran into trouble. Both major caveats.
It is a huge luxury to go to sleep away college. It’s expensive, for one thing… We live in NY,where the Excelsior award has picked up a lot of the college tuition for families earning under the $125K or so threshold, and the SUNYs have reasonably low tuition rates with state financial aid on top of the Federal, with the Excelsior picking up anything left, and a large constellation of state colleges near enough for most anyone to commute. Not much excuse for not being able to afford college. Even in the suburbia where I live, there are buses that can get you to the local colleges. SUNYs also do offer merit aid to sweeten the pot all the more.
Living expenses ,like room and board are a whole other thing. Those costs are high, IMO, especially compared to southern schools. So going away to college is expensive.
Those kids who did end up staying home and commuting to school in my kids’ schools did just fine, from what I could see. They finished programs that were more career oriented as a rule and were making a lot more than my kids were in the first years out of college. I have nothing but respect for those programs. I wish I’d focused a bit more on them than I did.
Some kids not mature enough to withstand the peer and social pressure, have the time management, executive function and discipline to study without the structure that home can provide. I know a lot of kids who started out going away to college and ending up at home. I have one who took 14 years before finally getting his degree–moved back home and finally finished up at a local school.
For some children staying home for at least a year or two for college – community college especially – is ideal and that should be an option that’s extended to them free of judgement.
Life has many twists and turns. I’ve had kids go away to college, and I’ve had kids who stayed and attended one of our city’s many fine universities. All of them have had exemplary times. In fact, the one who chose to stay local (a university that receives about 100,000 applications each year) was born a wise old man. Whether he attended college clear across the country or right across the street, he was going to excel and do it all on his own terms. He’s always been like that.
He chose to live and work on campus for the first three years. He’s the kid we saw the least amount of time during all our children’s first few years of college. I never saw the inside of his dorm room after move-in day until he granted me the privilege of helping him move out at the end of the year. Over these past few years in college, he’s traveled throughout the US, as well as Eastern Europe all on his own. Made his own arrangements for travel and lodging. He’s always been very mature and driven. He’s never let our post-recession finances slow him down.
As in most things, it always depends upon the individual and how they respond to situations. Many times in my life, I’ve just wanted to hide for awhile under my bed, but ultimately I know I have to dust myself off, deal with whatever life threw at me, and make the best of the situation. Most of the commuter students I’ve known have been very focused and tenacious students. Many are able to cash flow their educations through working multiple jobs, scholarships, and grants. I’ve been blessed to supervise several such students as interns. The passion and commitment they’ve brought to the office were inspiring, and they were also able to be involved in their university and greater community lives.
Disclaimer: There are students who live in very dramatic, chaotic, and unhealthy homes, and, for many reasons, they are unable to leave and have to stay at home and commute to their local university. Those are totally different situations than the ones most commuters are in.
Staying at home and commuting to college is not always a sign of immaturity. There are many reasons students choose to live at home during college. My boss lived at home during college, and she pretty much paid for everything herself…
Many commuter students work while in college too.
Also, going away for college doesn’t make someone more mature. Many kids who go away to college are being supported financially by their parents…nothing wrong with that, just pointing it out.
There is not right or wrong way. It depends on the kid, the family, and finances.
I have always been a big believer of going away to college. You grow up being out on your own.
There is a probably a debt number I would agree to for going away to college. I am not sure what that number is. It is probably in the $20-30K range. Over that I probably would not recommend going away for college for all 4 years.
A lot depends on what the student will study. If the most likely job after college will pay $50-60K then I would be ok with the debt. If that number was $30-35K then taking on the debt might not be a good idea.