<p>My S and D both go to schools that are over 500 miles from home. My S’s school has a ride board and he always finds rides home. Mostly he went home with friends but once he made a connection with someone he didn’t know and checked things out (person had a reliable car, there were others going, knew who the person was from someone else) and everything turned out well. My H (the cheap person that he is) thinks that this is the way everything is at every college. (my S goes to the same school he went to).</p>
<p>My D says that there is no such thing as a ride board at her school. She doesn’t know anyone who is coming the same direction as her. She claims that “everyone” flys and that she cannot find a ride home, ever! She also claims that “everyone” is going home for fall break and everyone will fly home for Thanksgiving even though they only have 2 days off. She does have plans to go with a friend from a different school for Thanksgiving but I’m worried that they will flake out or expect her to find a ride to meet them. (which of course she can’t do, as no one is going there that she knows). She goes to a school which is pretty selective and has students from all over the country and we are one state away (albeit a big long state).</p>
<p>My question (if you thought I was never going to get to a point). Does your child’s school have a ride board and have they ever used it? How do they usually get home, do they sometimes find rides (it’s just over 500 miles or she could go to my sisters which is only 250 miles) or do they always fly? Also do you fly your kids home for Thanksgiving when they only have 2 days off? </p>
<p>My H and I are disagreeing about this and my D is very upset that we don’t just fly her home for every break. Her school is very expensive and we are really short of money this year. I just can’t see flying her home for Thanksgiving for $600 and turning around and flying her home for Christmas 2 weeks later. I’m actually not disagreeing with him but I think that for Freshman year she should fly home for Christmas break and I have to make reservations soon.</p>
<p>Both of my kids – my son, who is now in graduate school, and my daughter, who is a sophomore in college – are reluctant to consider ride boards. They don’t trust strangers to be safe drivers, and in my daughter’s case, I think she wouldn’t feel safe in other ways as well if she had to ride in a stranger’s car.</p>
<p>It may be true that there is no ride board at your daughter’s school, but it’s also possible that she would be unwilling to use one even if it exists and considers it more tactful not to mention that. </p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a student – especially a female student – to be apprehensive about accepting a ride from someone they don’t know.</p>
<p>My daughter, who is 300 miles from home, can come home during any break that she wants to because there happens to be an inexpensive charter bus from her campus to our metropolitan area (it operates only for the university breaks). The bus ride takes seven hours, but it’s MUCH cheaper than flying. If she had to fly, I think it might not make financial sense for her to come home for every break. But with the cheap bus, she can choose for herself whether or not to come home. </p>
<p>If you live in a major metropolitan area, there might be some sort of bus service from your daughter’s campus to your area. But it might not be officially sponsored by the college (my daughter’s bus isn’t). The only way to discover such things is to communicate with other kids from the same college who live in the same area (and it might be easiest to do that right here on CC).</p>
<p>If you choose not to let your daughter fly home for all of her breaks, I think it would be a good idea to find out whether the dorms stay open during the breaks. At the university my son attended as an undergraduate, most of the dorms closed for all the breaks, including the very short break at Thanksgiving. If you don’t let your daughter come home, you might find yourself having to pay for several nights in a motel, which might cost almost as much as the flight.</p>
<p>At our school, a parent made arrangements for a chartered bus to go from the school to a central location in our state (approx 300 miles away). The Parent coordinator for the college sent emails to the parents in our area to contact the parent coordinating the bus if we were interested. She just took the cost of the bus, divided it by the number of kids riding, and that’s the price (+ $10 per student for herself to cover her time/effort).</p>
<p>Another thought - is Amtrack a possibility? Although it’s pretty expensive too.</p>
<p>That said, this is an issue that should have been discussed in your family before your daughter decided to go to this college (not that it helps you any now!) She should not have assumed, and you should have made it clear, that the family cannot afford to fly her home for every break. My D in hs has a school she likes, but it’s a long distance and she knows that travel back and forth will be a big problem. She is about to cross the school off her list for this reason. (sorry to sound harsh)</p>
<p>Not to be harsh, but I agree with Lafalum that this issue should have been discussed long ago. We knew about the charter bus to my daughter’s college before she even applied there, and I’m not sure whether she would have applied if that service had not been available.</p>
<p>My son was a master at scrounging rides. He got a ride to school one year–over 3000 miles! My daughter, 200 miles away in Portland, had a much harder time with rides. I think it’s partly a safety issue. Once she had a car, which she has since sold, she found riders to share gas by posting in her school’s LiveJournal community. </p>
<p>Thanksgiving is always terribly expensive for flying. If your daughter can fly Thursday AM and Monday sometime it might be considerably cheaper–but I would suggest giving her a budget for the two trips and letting her decide how she wants to spend it–one trip by plane, two by bus, etc.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon does have a ride board, but since it’s a good 7+ hours to get back to our house we fly him home. So far we’ve been able to afford Thanksgiving. When I was in college I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving a couple of years because my parents were overseas. I always managed to find friends or relatives to have Thanksgiving with.</p>
<p>I don’t think that anyone is being harsh. I talked and talked to my D about the distance and the fact that she would not be able to come home for every break. The fact is that she didn’t listen and now seems so suprised that I expect her to stay at school or find friends to visit. She has friends from HS that she could visit easily and take a bus.</p>
<p>I have researched every option to find a way to get her home other than flying. No bus in our direction, no amtrack route, nothing.</p>
<p>It’s really fustrating when I talked about all of the downsides of attending this school and the fact that she was far enough away that she would have to consider not coming home all the time. But she is a pain in the rear sometimes and wants to guilt me into doing what she wants.</p>
<p>I wanted to see what others do. And I agree about the ride board. She would tell me if she felt uncomfortable about riding with strangers but I know she hasn’t talked to anyone about how they are getting home or tried to find others who live somewhere in our direction. Tactful is not in her personality.</p>
<p>We had a hard conversation today about how she is becoming an adult and has to make adult decisions. That her mother needs to not do everything for her and that she needs to figure some things out herself.</p>
<p>My son is 2800 miles away from home and a sophomore this year. We do fly him back for Thanksgiving, even tho its a short weekend for so much travel and even tho he only has about a week of classes left afterwards before finals. But we make the plane reservations in July, so cost is a little less of a factor. We also make the plane reservations for the end of the semester (well, it’s the return leg of the round trip ticket that got him out there in August). But last year we did not pay for a flight for spring break and he stayed out west. So he gets (potentially) three round trip flights each school year. Also…his college is 1-1/2 to 2 hours from the closest major airport and he has always had to arrange for his own ride each way since he doesn’t have a car. That part is his responsibility.</p>
<p>deb922–It is tough when the parents aren’t on board as a team on something. </p>
<p>Perhaps you might want to suggest to you husband that your daughter gets X amount of money per year (or semester) that includes her paying for her airfare to come home. Then let the daughter decide just how much it is worth to spend money to come home for two days.</p>
<p>My son as a freshman thought it was worth it to fly home for Thanksgiving. Boy, did he change his mind this soph year. Freshman year they seem to think all holidays will be “the old gang” getting together. NOT.</p>
<p>I’m with you that if the distance to the school and the cost of airfare reducing the visits home were discussed when they could be considered in her choice of school, it makes little sense as part of helping the student make choices on the basis of economics, to just foot the airfare to please her.</p>
<p>deb922, it sounds like you are on the right track. If you told her this, and she didn’t listen, then she’s learning a lesson. You say she hasn’t even made an effort to find a ride, because she’s apparently convinced herself that you will cave in and buy a plane ticket. Stick to your guns, tell her you can’t afford to fly her home for every break, and that she needs to find a ride or tell the college that she’s staying there. (If your school has a lot of international students then the dorms may stay open for the shorter breaks). I’d suggest she go to the student center, or contact res life or the dean of students, and ask if there is a ride board or a centralized way for students to arrange rides. There may be one if she just looks for it.</p>
<p>Ha. My kid doesn’t give me her schedule till it’s twice the price night from Memphis to home. Thanks, dear. She gets to drive to Little Rock now and take Southwest. She’s usually driving alone and when she gets there 1/2 the flight is Rhodes kids. Grrrrr. ;)</p>
<p>As far as bumming rides, that has happened once.</p>
<p>Southwest is great for arranging kid fares, we learned early to buy immediately the most likely fare; if your D ends up with an early finals schedule (winter break) and if the fares are still low she can switch at no extra fee.</p>
<p>On Tgiving, we did not have my D1 come home at all; too expensive, too long a trip (multiple stops, etc) and risks of missed connections to make it worth the hassle & expense; we did have 3 different family members within 30-90 minutes- some times she hung with them, sometimes not.</p>
<p>Fares have sure gone up over the last 6-7 years, each kid has attended closer, but now I am likely to pay the same for the kid 500 miles closer as I paid for the oldest from farther away, and sometimes even the in state kid gets the same $200 RT fare.</p>
<p>One year my DD waited too long for Tgiving and I was only willing to pay the early bird fare, instead she used her own money and flew to visit friends in Canada where it is not Tgiving and the fares were less.</p>
<p>I give the kids the early bird amount for a budget and then they sometimes have to absorb the extra if they delay purchase. Of course, I phase that in over time, starting out in 1st year with me doing all travel, then mid way through doing it together and by year two having them do it entirely with me giving them the funds. Trying to teach a little fiscal responsibility and I don’t to hear the whinging when I pick the “wrong” flight, the wrong connection, whatever doesn’t meet their high standards</p>
<p>Our freshman daughter had an invitation to stay in the area of her college (well, at least the same state) for Thanksgiving, but she really wanted to come home this year. Even though it’s only 16 days before finals. By the time she realized she wanted to come home the fares were high, so we agreed to split the cost. I think for the first year it’s okay; it will probably make the adjustment to college go better to know that the trip home is available. I do wish we had budgeted for it, but we’ll know for the next kid.</p>
<p>Daughter has given and gotten rides between home and Oberlin (~450 miles apart) on several occasions. It is not hard because we are on the route between her school and New York City and lots of kids from northern New Jersey and the NYC area go to her school. I have seen postings for rides on the classified ad section of the school web site, but do not know whether she used this, word of mouth or some other method to arrange things.</p>
<p>She flew home for Thanksgiving her freshman year, but between arranging rides from school to the airport, the whole hassle with air travel these days and getting her back and forth between the airport and home, it seems to be easier and only a couple hours longer when all is said and done to drive.</p>
<p>It helps that the school is small and everyone knows almost everyone else.</p>
<p>Some schools have email groups…Maybe she could make her needs known early enough to have opportunity to meet possible drivers, get to know them a bit and work out a ride…or NOT accept a ride, depending on how she feels. In my day, kids were eager to share rides and expenses!
Of course if she’s not really prepared to meet ‘strangers’, this idea might be a flop~ In her defense, it’s sometimes difficult for freshman to extend themselves in this way. Perhaps she’ll be more comfortable searching for a ride after she’s been on campus longer. Most schools with which I’m familiar have ride boards, but I agree safety must be strongly considered as there are no guarantees that a note on a bulletin board is truthful.</p>
<p>I doubt there is anything on campus that “everyone” does or does not do. Everyone is not going home for Thanksgiving and everyone is not flying home. Most schools have things planned for kids still on campus at break. And lots of local families (those not flying) will adopt kids left on campus for Thanksgiving. So not coming home, while maybe not optimal, does not have to be terrible.</p>
<p>We do not know the specifics of your logistics but there probably are some kids driving (if for no other reason than some the kids can not afford to fly). If there is a demand the students will have figured out a way to get a hold of each … ride board … web site … these must be something. Driving with strangers has 3 disadvantages … 1) the driver may suck … 2) the driver may be a nutjob … and 3) the student may be uncomforatble with strangers. As big user of ride boards in college I dealt with all three … 1) ask for references from previous trips … 2) initially only go if there will be more than one passenger … 3) over time there were kids I rode with multiple times and became friends (and travel planning partners).</p>
<p>I bet it can be done safely if your daughter really wants to come home.</p>
<p>Our D, who is a freshman at a school about 1000 miles away, will be flying home for a week-long fall break in Oct. and then at Christmas. Thank goodness for SW airlines. I track the Ding fares daily and grab flights when they are on sale. We told her up front that Thanksgiving travel would be awful and she needed to make plans to stay there over the Thanksgiving break. She has a couple of HS friends at colleges in the area and will get together with them. Thanksgiving will seem strange without her home, but it just didn’t make sense.</p>