My older son went to college about 1000 miles away and flew. He came back to find a job near home! His brother goes to college within driving distance (3 hours) and it definitely feel like he is less far away. He has a car and came home for the weekend once each semester unexpectedly (not during a break). It was a nice surprise to see him!
This is a YMMV situation. Most kids seem to be/do just fine. My niece from Florida had unexpected significant medical issues as a (double legacy) freshman at Univ. of Kansas (18 hr drive, no direct flights and bad connections). No advance notice travel was was very unpleasant for her parents. You may sleep a little better if you have friends/relatives closer to campus.
DD is attending school on the opposite coast. Originally it was a big concern. Now a year later it is ok. We visited her few times, she was home for a winter and spring break. We FaceTime and text every day and it doesn’t feel like she is a 3000 miles away.
@citymama9, I’m sure you’ve heard some stories about kids going to a college nearby and then leaving for a job across the country. My friend’s two kids went to a local school, one stayed but the other was specifically looking for a job in CA (for the location), and found it! CS major, could have stayed in MA easily. I can’t even say he took a big salary, he just wanted to live there.
DS is a sophomore in high school and we are just starting the university search process. One of the schools he is considering is a 2 hour flight from home (or an 17 hour drive) with a 1 hour time difference. When you add in the time required to get to and from the airport, plus the time you need to be there before the flight, all told a trip home would probably take close to 7 hours. That’s a similar time frame that it used to take me to get home when I went away to school which all though only 2 hours away by car, took considerably longer if I had to take the train (local transit bus to the train station, national train, local commuter train, + 2 local transit buses + 15 min walk) so the distance of this school doesn’t concern me. The school is located in a major city so scheduling would not be difficult as there are frequent flights. The transportation costs would be much greater however (approximately $500 round trip) so we would have to think about him coming home for Thanksgiving and Easter. He would however have 3 weeks at Christmas and two 1 week study breaks, one in November and one if February. Logistically I think it would be fine.
What I am curious about though is for those who have children who studied away from home, how did they manage the summers? Did they come home for the summer and find jobs or did they find jobs in the city where they went to school? Also how about internships? Did they prevent them from coming home during the summer? Finally, did they come back home after they graduated or did they find permanent employment where they went to school?
My son went to a great college fairly close to home (his first choice was actually much farther away but didn’t get in). Also no regrets. We got to see him often.
I would rather have the kids within driving distance for various reasons - cost, convenience, being able to see them, knowing that if they need help, we’re not too far away. I think some kids are much more independent than others, which is also a factor. I’ve also seen a lot of kids mentioned on here that suffer with anxiety, which is another reason to keep them a little closer to home in case they need an escape route. Not all kids are cut out to be 3000 miles away, including mine.
I went to school far away from home and loved it, but when I got really sick, I only had my friends and my brother, who was also there. I believe my parents asked me if I wanted to come home, and I said no. I loved being there enough to tough it out. I spent some time living at the health facilities - it was that bad. As a parent, now, that would worry me a lot to have a child that sick and be so far away.
Sometimes I wish my daughter went to a school farther away! She’s in central PA, 500 miles away from home. It’s a pain getting her back and forth. It’s hard to justify flying, but it’s a bleeping long drive on crowded highways. So for me, that would be the more important question - how difficult is it to get back and forth? Flying would be easier than what we have to go through.
My son in Beirut CAN’T come home, thanks to ACA requirements. If he is home more than 30 days in any 365-day period, he has to pay the penalty for not having coverage. When he said he wanted to go to the American University of Beirut, we told him we would foot the bill for college but not transportation.
@gwnorth, I live in Wisconsin. D1 went to college in southern California. She came home for the summers (or parts of them, after hanging out or traveling with friends). She returned to southern California after graduating, worked there for about a year and a half, then moved to New York City. D2 went to college in Minnesota. She went to a program at her college after first year, had two different jobs (one in Minnesota, one for which she could live at home) after second year, and worked in Boston after third year. She took a job in NYC after graduating. She’ll be going to grad school in northern California. I cherish every one of their visits home. I miss them a lot but I accept that they’re doing what I hoped they would: being independent.
Also from WI, our kids both went OOS, one a 4 hour drive away and the other a 13 hour drive/less than 2 hr direct flight away. Both came home after freshman year to jobs they had had in HS, summers 2 and 3 were spent on study abroad or internships so neither one came home for more than a week. Both found jobs in Dallas and are very happy. We made the decision to travel to see them or arranged family vacations they could join us on as their schedules allowed. It really has not been a problem for any of us to have them go that far away - they are happy because they went where they felt the most at home and were mature enough to handle real life situations without hand holding.
@rosered55 & @MereMom thanks for your replies. Out of curiosity while they were at school did they live on or off campus? Which works better if they aren’t coming home for the summer?
to all moms: you are so strong! In my case, hand-holding is needed for me, not my kid. We sent a deposit to a far away school with a 3-4 hours bus from the other airport. One minute, I’m calm and sure that it was the right choice, seems like a very good program for his major, the next minute I feel we are making a huge mistake, ranking doesn’t matter, and he could have good education cheaper and closer to home. The decision has been made, and the kid himself doesn’t have any doubts.
@gwnorth, both daughters lived on campus all four years. The summer programs and jobs included housing. One niece and one nephew attend large state universities. They’ve had off-campus housing since after their first or second years; this has made staying in their cities much easier in the summers. In contrast, a friend has a daughter who attends college in NYC and lives on campus. She’d like to work for part or all of the summer in the city but I think she might be stymied by the housing issue, not because of a shortage (my daughters haven’t had problems finding places to live) but because the family has little money and so they can’t really afford to have her live someplace not being covered by financial aid.
goskid 1 went 2100 miles away, goskid 2 went 2600 miles. Both at schools that required two flights (or one flight and two hours driving) to get to campus. Great experiences for both.
They made it home for Thanksgiving and Xmas every year. Yes, it was basically a whole day of travel each way, but being students, they always had something to read or slept. Yes, each had a travel snafu at least once. Made for good stories/memories as they navigated being stranded somewhere…and always seemed to be stranded with some other students. Taught them a bit about flexibility and the ins and outs of dealing with airlines, hotels.
Selfishly, I would have preferred they were closer, but I’m not sure we would have seen them much more than we did. We surely would have a heck of a lot more frequent flier miles in our account! (At least 3 round trips per 4 years, per 2 kids = 24) plus H & I vacationed/visited each kid at least once (2 RT’s x 4 years x 2 kids = 16). I believe we only paid for 2-3 tickets in all. So it is a factor to be considered…
Only when goskid 1 was really sick and almost hospitalized that I hated them being so far. But her school was on top of things and kept me up to date, convincing me that I didn’t need to hop on the next plane.
As others have said, four years goes by quickly…
Our kids moved off campus after 1st year at their U. S had a summer job in HI the 1st 2 summers and Newport News the 3rd summer. He then accepted a permanent job in DC at my urging because it was a better and more interesting career move for him than the 2 jobs he was offered in HI.
We see him more now than when he was in college, between meeting him when we are in CA or D.C. And him flying to Hi to see us. The main thing is he’s happy and seems to love his job!
D is living in LA and also seems very happy. We see her when we are in CA of she’s able to meet us in HI or any of our trips.
It’s working well for both kids and we are still able to fly and see them as our schedules permit.
Our son went to boarding school and to college across the country from home. It CAN be a PITA, but he has platinum status on one of the airlines now and that has been worth something to him.
@aandaparent I sympathasize. It might help to join a facebook with other parents at that college. You’ll get support, see that you are not alone and maybe some reassurance that everything will work out. GL!
No regrets except when I was paying for the airfare 
My first one went to Chicago a 6 hour drive. I thought after she got married and graduated she would stay in Chicago, but no, she moved back with her spouse to our area for law school. Our second one went to southern Ohio for college,only 4 hours away. The 4 hour drive was miserable, small airport with high airfare and very limited flights in and out. She inherited her old high school Jeep and her younger sisters got a new one. She graduates this weekend, and starts graduate school that is not close to us. Our high school senior will be 12 hours by car. in Tennessee this fall. No regrets for us but I learned very early to get their airplane tickets as early as possible or you will pay a small fortune.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I will share a humorous story about my son’s first flight home for his October break. He had never flown by himself before, but was fully prepared to do it, even if he was a bit anxious.
So we booked him on Spirit Airlines (if you aren’t familiar with this airline–we weren’t–google the Onion’s hilariously raunchy article). Flight was dirt cheap, even after paying for extras such as luggage, seat selection, seat belts, oxygen mask, and intact landing gear. I thought this was going to be an awesome way to get him back and forth between Cleveland and Boston for four years.
My son, being my son, gets to the airport way early. About an hour before he is supposed to take off, Spirit announces a two hour delay. And then another two hour delay. And then a cancellation. But, hey, no problem, we’re putting you all up in hotels for the night and we will bus you to the airport for the first flight out. And here is a voucher for a free burger and fries.
My son thought this was a nice adventure (he got his own hotel room for the first time ever, hooray!) until the next morning, when the Spirit shuttle hauled him and his fellow passengers back to the airport. There, he learned that the flight was delayed again. And again. Twenty hours after the original flight was scheduled to leave, Spirit cancelled.
We advised him to run to Jet Blue and book the next flight out. He got the last seat on it.
When we went to pick up our son at the airport, my husband held up a sign that read “Spirit Airlines S—ks.”
All three kiddo’s have plane rides. Living on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes it a must…LOL. I have grown intolerant to long car rides because our longest drive (and we go slow on purpose) is 45 minutes…maybe an hour with traffic. I thought I was going to go insane with the traffic in LA when we were there for college visits in March. It has subsequently garnered us mega airline miles, which we use to send them back and forth or travel ourselves to visit (though that happens much less often). Luckily, our kids have traveled via air countless times throughout their lives and feel very comfortable doing so alone. Our youngest is a little more spoiled, though. He tends to think First Class is the only way to travel alone because when he was at tennis academy in FL we upgraded him often because of the long flight times and his young age. I think we’ve created a monster… X_X