How far is the nearest airport to your college?

<p>My D goes to Purdue in West Lafayette and the closest airport is in Indianapolis, 70 miles away. I can drive in 1:15 min but the shuttle bus can take 1:35-1:50 mins depending on where you get on/ off at campus.</p>

<p>This is a timely thread, as I sit here staring at a $914 fare for Thanksgiving and just can’t pull the trigger. Thanks to momofthreeboys for the tip about flying south to make a connection, and naviance, for the tip about looking for the longest connection time. It’s going to be a long four years.</p>

<p>This is a very useful thread particularly when specific details, i.e., school, name of airport, mode of transportation to/from airport, costs, and easy/difficult to use, etc, are offered. This is one of our considerations when looking at a school.</p>

<p>Wellesley is suburban Boston, but it’s not cheap to get from Logan to campus. It’s about $70 for a cab. Lots cheaper with public transportation but requires multiple changes and lots of walking. My S went to visit his sister last weekend - his flight got in at 2 pm and using public transportation he didn’t get to campus til 5 pm. Luckily he has time to kill and didn’t mind. </p>

<p>For back and forth my D relies on friends to drive her and they charge $40.</p>

<p>UVA has a transportation problem - quite far from an airport of any size. </p>

<p>I often asked at college fairs, “how do we get there from here?”. Often the college rep didn’t have a ready answer, which I thought reflected very poorly on their preparation.</p>

<p>If colleges want to attract out-of-state students, they really need to provide transportation around major breaks, from airport to campus. Out-of-state students (parents of students) are willing to pay substantially to make sure their kid has a reliable way to get home.</p>

<p>We had to rule out several out-of-state U’s based on transportation.</p>

<p>We are very happy with where the kids ended up:
UConn: Amtrak works very well. University transportation from either train station or airport (Bradley - Hartford) When we (parents) travel, we take the Acela (faster train) from the DC area and rent a car in New Haven.
Ohio University: Columbus is 90 minutes away. Non stop service from BWI on Southwest. University transportation from airport to campus.</p>

<p>Don’t most colleges have on their website a “how to get here” that provides driving, public transportation and / or airport directions? I would think they would and that should cover any questions that the OP has.</p>

<p>D is at Case Western in Cleveland. About 30-45 minutes away from the airport - all Case students get a pass for the RTA. The train is very convenient to take to the airport - there are two stations near campus for them to use. D has taken the train or had friends give her a ride - absolutely no problem.</p>

<p>This was one of the things I was very happy with when she chose Case over U of R. Rochester was a lovely school/campus, but getting to it and back from Boston was not easy. Cleveland is much easier that way - we would have to had to drive her for most of her trips if she was at U of R.</p>

<p>True Pizza. Also it’s a VERY good question for students to ask - you know how Kids are always “looking” for “good” questions for info sessions, personal interviews etc. If you are a parent with a student looking at a remote college or even one in a Tier 3 airport, ask you student to ask the question “How do most students travel in and out of blah-blah insert college town.”</p>

<p>If the student/family has time on the visit, perhaps trying to arrange the logistics of getting to and from the campus without a rental car may be worth the exercise to see how well that works.</p>

<p>Brown is 9 miles from the airport and Providence is a non-stop flight from Chicago with Southwest. Couldn’t be much more convenient in terms of both time and cost.</p>

<p>The academics I know who complain most about distance from a major airport are at Cornell. Ithaca has a small airport but there are only a few flights in and out, and you need at least one if not two connecting flights from most parts of the country, which can easily chew up the better part of a day. Some people fly into Syracuse (1 hour 15 min. away) or Rochester (about 2 hours) but those aren’t exactly major hubs, either, and I have no idea how you’d get from either of those airports to Ithaca by public transport if you didn’t have a car. I’ve done it for academic conferences but I’ve always rented a car, something most college students aren’t able to do.</p>

<p>bclintonk, my H turned down a job there primarily for that reason. He travels often. And there is the icy winter weather added to the mix, making travel even more difficult.</p>

<p>I’m not sure whether the issue here is cost or convenience.</p>

<p>My Oberlin D has absolutely no problem getting to the Cleveland airport during times when students would be travelling because Oberlin runs frequent and free shuttles. There are ways to get to the airport at other times, but they are more expensive. I would guess that most schools figure out a way to get kids to and from the airport during “peak times,” ie., start of school, end of school and vacations.</p>

<p>However in terms of airfare, D simply hasn’t come home over Thanksgiving because it’s too expensive. She has had a ton of fun going home with friends who live closer to her school, and I would be she’d rather to that than come home even if it were cheap.</p>

<p>Just thought I’d point out flight options to Walla Walla and Whitman College since it inspired this thread. You can fly into Walla Walla from Seattle, but lots of students fly into Pasco, which is an hour away and offers many more flight options. There are three shuttle buses a day to and from the Pasco airport, they stop in downtown Walla Walla, a mere 4 blocks from campus. Students with cars often shuttle their friends back and forth. Pasco is also quite a bit cheaper.</p>

<p>OP here…</p>

<p>despite being old as dirt and having friends who are in the midst of these issues, my kids are too young for college (stumbled on CC looking for info re college financial planning with blended families–at some point we will have all three in college/hs together)…and decided to stay to educate myself as the scenario has changed drastically since I went to undergrad or law school. </p>

<p>One of the things I appreciate is being exposed to colleges that might never have crossed my mind. And because I am by nature a research and logistics junkie, I immediately file the info away for future use…(good school but pain in the butt to get to…like Cornell which my DH attended for grad school so that wasn’t a surprise).</p>

<p>You touched a nerve with this one-been a real pain for us. I remember being told that many colleges established by religious denominations in the 1800’s(some of our finest colleges today) purposefully built them in the country so that kids wouldn’t be exposed to the sins of the cities. Weren’t thinking about airports at the time I guess.
anyway, when I was in college in the 70’s the family rule was 1 trip home a year at Christmas otherwise you were on your own. Hasn’t held up for my kids.</p>

<p>@LoremIpsum–that’s great that there are flights from Chicago to Providence, but just to let people know…if you are on the West Coast there aren’t non-stop flights to Providence (at least from LA), so I have my son fly in and out of Boston. You can take a Peter Pan bus to Logan for $20 each way or take the metro rail line. Besides avoiding the dreaded plane change during holidays, the flights are often cheaper on that route (and as a bonus, you can fly Jet Blue or Virgin, much more pleasant airlines). </p>

<p>I think this is a great idea for a thread. It does make life easier when transportation isn’t a huge hassle. That was a real downside when we looked at Cornell.</p>

<p>[kjcphmom] S1 goes to University of Minnesota. He has never flown home (has taken the 7 hour ride on the Megabus) but the airport is probably about 45 minutes away. Students now can take the bus to the light rail and take that directly to the airport. Next year the light rail will be running from the university so a bus to the station will not be needed. Not sure what the cost is but probably less than $10. (Taxis to the airport would obviously be more.)

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<p>Just to clarify on the price: it’s $1.75 for the bus which includes a free transfer to the light rail, or vice versa. In rush hours it goes up to $2.25. It’s about a 40 minute trip from the West Bank campus, 45 minutes from the East Bank. The Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (MSP) is a major hub for Delta, with non-stop service to just about every major U.S. airport. And there’s competition on many routes to major cities which tends to keep airfares relatively reasonable. So, for example, Delta, American, and United all have frequent nonstop service MSP-Chicago; Delta, United, and Frontier compete for non-stop MSP-Denver traffic; Delta and United compete MSP-San Francisco and MSP-LA; Delta and US airways compete MSP-Philadelphia, and so on. The only major route where Delta has a monopoly on non-stop service is MSP-Detroit (another major Delta hub), so that tends to be expensive. There’s also Southwest service but you usually need to connect through Chicago (Midway), St. Louis, or Denver.</p>

<p>Being near such a major hub is also convenient for Macalester College in Saint Paul, but the public transit connections to/from MSP are more complicated so Mac recommends you take a taxi which should be in the vicinity of $20–not bad, especially if you can share the cab fare with a friend.</p>

<p>Indiana University (IU) is a 45 minute shuttle/car ride from Indianapolis International Airport–you have to prebuy for breaks, but it’s still only like $40</p>

<p>Raleigh-Durham (RDU) is served by Southwest and less than 30 minutes from any of the three big Triangle schools. It probably is the closest airport to Elon too. Fares were surprisingly reasonable for fall break and still not horrible for Thanksgiving.</p>