No surprise. Typical American way of life: borrow as much as possible. Millions of people who don’t go to college still have high debt and file bankruptcy.
“mom2collegekids
The fact remains that most college students commute to college. Not every student lives near a college. Online courses have become more popular because many either don’t live near a CC or univ or don’t have transportation.”
Please present some facts that “:most college students commute to college” and attribute those facts.
Do you consider living off-campus commuting, or just living at home?
T think your “facts” are wrong.
@tk21769, the vast majority of schools where students who graduate with high debt attend are privates that give poor aid (which would be most privates). So the “typical” scenario is where a student turns down a public to attend a private that is poor at giving financial aid.
@ucbalumnus, I’ve said it before, but in terms of governance and state spending, PSU, Pitt, and Temple are essentially privates now. I think PA contributes to 2% of PSU’s budget or something like that.
@gunnerz, for you. http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf Page 6
http://www.schoolguides.com/College_News/commuting_to_college_has_its_benefits___800821531.html
http://www.nsse.indiana.edu/pdf/commuter.pdf
There are more…
I remember reading an article about most students attend colleges within 50 miles from home or something like that. It was from several years ago though. Note that parking may be an issue for some schools.
There are a good number of states where weather is a factor in commuting ability also. There were several days last year where the college my D goes to was open that I would consider undrivable by most 18-year-olds. Add in freeway closures for construction or accidents on major roads and that hour-long drive can become a nightmare.
It’s also incredibly difficult in many cases to arrange classes into a commuter-friendly schedule. Add in things like practice times, labs, study groups, and it gets extremely complicated. Then add a part-time job to the schedule as well, and that increases the stress level. When is this student supposed to study?
So even when it is potentially feasible to commute, it can be a tough decision.
Just did a search and found some other articles. 53% of college students attend a school within 100 miles and the median distance for all student is 51 miles.
In regards to the percentage of a university’s budget that is funded by a state government, there are often games played with these numbers. The relevant number is the percent of the ACADEMIC budget.
Another very relevant number is the average state subsidy per full time equivalent in-state student (by that measure, UNC-CH has been way ahead until recently).
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mom2collegekids wrote:
I don’t believe that most/all of those with massive debt are ones who didn’t have a CC or univ near their home.
@ucbalumnus
Some may have chosen an expensive residential school over an affordable one.
Some disdain public colleges, or their in-state public colleges. This is evident on these forums, where some are unwilling to attend their in-state publics (particularly for New Jersey residents), much less start at community colleges. This often removes some of their less expensive options.
Some may have the misfortune (for college cost purposes) to live in a place like Pennsylvania, where the in-state public options are expensive with poor in-state financial aid. Using http://www.collegedata.com/cs/search/college/college_search_tmpl.jhtml to search for public colleges with student loan debt over $35,000, Pennsylvania public colleges make up 11 out of the 22 colleges that show up.
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Even in PA, many students can start at a CC or local state school. Even if they have to borrow for their last 2 years, they shouldn’t end up with “massive debt”. And, again, there are online options, even at publics.
If people are choosing more expensive schools because of silly “distain” for their instate schools, then we don’t have to sympathize with their situations. I could distain affordable cars and purchase an unaffordable car…does that mean everyone should sympathize with me while I struggle with the payments???
Maybe we need to make a thread listing the cheapest reputable online offerings of CCs and univs? I know a student who found some public with online classes that were very reasonably priced.
Commuting from home. Links to studies are from 2008, 2011 I think. I saw 51%. That’s not an overwhelming majority at all. Of my children’s friends, none of them live at home and commute to college (or did commute to college). One of my daughter’s friends went to college lived about 15 miles from her home and she lived in a dorm and then off campus. Maybe some states/high schools have a lot of commuting students, but not by me.
In California, the 112 community colleges make up the bulk of college enrollment, although that combined both students preparing to transfer to universities for bachelor’s degree completion and those studying for associates degrees, specific skills training, or personal interest. Among the public universities, the commuter-heavy 23-campus CSU system enrolls about twice as many students as the more residential 9-(undergrad-)campus UC system. The private non-profit colleges and universities have relatively small enrollment compared to the public ones in California.
There were days these last two years as a commuter when I couldn’t leave my driveway. Luckily, two of those days ended up being cancelled by the school anyway because it wasn’t safe. However, I did have to miss school because it was simply too dangerous to drive (snow and ice) and school isn’t worth risking my life for. There was another day that I decided to brave it and ended up in a ditch like hundreds of other people (car and I were fine).
Then there are schools which are either purposely or unintentionally not commuter friendly. A parking pass here is very expensive and there is parking near school buildings. I drive for about a half hour and then take another half hour on the bus to get to my classes. Geographically, I only live about 20 miles from my school but that doesn’t mean much of anything in terms of commute.
I’m not saying commuting is a bad thing or that it’s not doable- I’m just saying that it’s not the magic bullet people on CC seem to think it is. This is especially apparent with people in the south who don’t understand what it’s like to drive in snow and ice.
I dislike the option of simply commuting to college. I have friends that did that, including my husband…they all regret not having a full college experience. I lived in NY back in the day and went away to State school for little money. I believe that we should not go backwards and deny our kids what we had…a full, engaging college experience by forcing them to commute to a local “eh” school because it’s cheaper. The problem is not to blame parents, but States, for not properly funding colleges as they used to. And it’s probably only certain states. Now I’m in NJ. And if your state schools are ridiculously pricey, like New Jersey’s…28.5 per year…the “local” State school option with room and board is equal to an LAC with merit money. Both are about 30k per year. I feel this is all unacceptable. So all of you who are doing the “let them eat cake” thing…suggesting that kids should commute locally to colleges to be fiscally responsible…think about the system, instead. There’s no reason for ridiculously expensive State schools. They are supposed to be the option for middle class kids. We should not have to make choices…to fund our retirement OR to shoulder our kids with crushing debt. things need to change…the answer is not to make kids commute.
States respond to voter preferences. Voters prefer lower taxes and higher spending on other things (like prisons to house criminals sentenced to long terms due to “three strikes” and other “tough on crime” laws enacted during the crime wave of the 1980s-1990s). So post-secondary education gets squeezed out of the state budgets.
Well, in NJ we have crippling taxes AND improperly funded state education. So while you are correct that voters prefer lower taxes… My concern is that in certain States, you are paying exorbitant taxes and still not funding your schools properly. I don’t know if NJ stands alone, or Is similar to other states. but I would like to hear from others. What is your State school’s tuition/room and board? And how does that compare to your overall taxes?
I guess we have few people on this board who actually commuted for their own college. FYI, commuting is the norm rather than some exceptional hardship. And it saves a lot of money. But it isn’t quite the same 7/24 experience that many (including myself) wished they had the money to pay for.
Lots of kids live at home for college. They commute just like people commute to jobs.
From one of the links above:
“51 percent of students enrolled in college during the 2011-2012 academic year lived at home. Seventy-seven percent of students enrolled in two-year public colleges chose to remain at home, while about 40 percent of four-year private college students and 38 percent of four-year public college students did the same.”
There’s many current swanky residential colleges (NYU and Boston College to name two) that were primarily commuter schools 30 years ago. Ivy League Columbia has always had a good number of commuter students.
transitmom, good posts. We too live in New Jersey. In our school district students consider Rutgers, the state university, a safety school; they all expect to get in. I think it was last week, or the week before, that Rutgers and Montclair State announced tuition increases for 2015-16. How can a college make these announcements 2-3 weeks before students return to campus? What if a student’s family then says with the increase they can’t afford the school? Rutgers-New Brunswick is so spread out a commuter might park in a neighboring town, and then take a bus to campus.
We have a rising senior, and frankly we have been agonizing over whether to have D commute (no debt) or to live on campus at a 4 year state U out of town (student loans).
D is hardworking and a good student, yet because of her dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc. does not test well, even with accommodations. So there’s not much scholarship money coming her way to offset costs.
She is by nature a shy child with a tendency to be a homebody if not encouraged to be social. She’s the type that would be perfectly fine having mommy and daddy make all the decisions in her life.
We used the College Board tool mentioned upthread to find the 20 closest schools to us. Only 1 2-year CC was within driving distance. She’d have zero chance of making friends and working on her independence. There were a total of (I believe) 4 4-year schools within driving distance: 2 religious privates that don’t line up with our beliefs, 1 HBCU (she’s white–might be hard to make friends), and a STEM heavy “engineer factory” that doesn’t have her exact major of interest and requires way more math and science than she would need/be able to handle.
Some of you might advise D to commute to the 4 year STEM-heavy college or to the CC purely to stay debt-free. However, there are often other factors that might, in the end, outweigh the monetary gain. Of course, we’re not talking the massive debt that has been mentioned, but it would still be debt.
We just want our daughter to have the opportunity to accomplish her career goals and mature enough to be independent.
It’s hard to do a cost-benefit analysis for that.
In Europe, it is pretty standard to live at home while attending college. Colleges usually don’t have dorms, athletics and other things that here in the U.S. we think are part of the typical “college experience.”
The U.K. is a little closer to the U.S. residential model, but still pretty commuter oriented.
While living at college is a great experience, it is expensive and most often optional.
We’d all save a lot of money if the U.S. standard middle class model changed to something more like 2 years of local/CC at home and then maybe 2 years away at university. That would still be considered plush by European standards.