My daughter goes to school over 1200 miles from home and I remember the reactions I got from many family members and friends, who were surprised that we would send her so far away. Many of those other people had set limits for their kids based on distance, saying they didn’t want them to be so far from home. I guess that sounds like it makes sense, but the reality has turned out to be quite different. That’s because a lot of the kids at these closer schools can’t get back-and-forth to school as easily as my daughter.
Case in point, my niece goes to school about 250 miles away from home. It is a good 5 hour drive if there is no traffic. She wants to come home for a weekend because her dad (my brother) is having a milestone birthday and there will be a party. So my sister-in-law has to spend over 10 hours on the road to go pick her up on Friday (and take off from work to to it), and then another 10 hours to bring her home on Sunday. And that’s if there’s no traffic. If she wanted to take public transportation it would be about two hours on a bus, then five hours on Amtrak, and at least another hour and a half on a train from the Amtrak station to her suburban home. My daughter, on the other hand, even though she is more than four times the distance away, can get herself to the airport in an Uber in 10 minutes and it’s a 2 1/2 hour flight home, and then a 40 minute drive by cab (or bymom and dad) to our house.
Obviously air travel is expensive, and having your child go to a school where air travel is required might not be possible for everyone. But when thinking about location it might be helpful to think about what kind of travel it will involve for your child to get back-and-forth rather than how many miles away they are. If my niece was going to a school closer to an Amtrak station for example, that would probably make it a lot easier on her parents. My daughter has friends who go to school in our own state who have to drive 8 hours each way, which is more time than it takes for my daughter to get door to door. And I must admit, it’s pretty nice that she can get herself back-and-forth and it doesn’t involve us taking her.
So that’s just my hopefully helpful $0.02 on how a family might want to think about distance from home in hours rather than miles!
Of course! That’s why I mentioned that my post. Even when we were looking at schools wouldn’t require air travel, we were always interested in how long the drive was, the likelihood of traffic, and whether public transportation would be reasonably easy.
Good point. If you start to add up the price of filling up the car a couple times and a number of meals on the road, I could see it would be less cost effective than airfare back and forth to a couple major airports.
Thanks, it’s a good thing to discuss and consider. I did start a thread a while back to help me sort through thoughts on distance, and with that thread eliminated one that was 7.5 hours by car (obnoxious) and 2 hours from an airport (also obnoxious). Right now we’re looking at one 9 hours away by car. Close enough we could drive to move her in and out each year (or maybe look into a storage unit), but far enough she would fly the rest of the time. It isn’t too far from an airport. I really wish there were nonstop flights as that would make it really easy, but there are not. She loves flying and airports, though, so says she won’t mind the layover. The merit aid there more than makes up for the airfare and especially if we can keep our SW points up to have enough for her and for vacations too. I’m stepping up my e-Rewards game in preparation for stockpiling points. We’re visiting next month so we’ll see how she feels about the distance then.
We’re considering some 3-5 hours away which I guess I would have her drive but honestly having her fly kind of sounds better than winter driving or worries about vehicle maintenance from a distance. There is one 2 hours away I may be able to convince her to attend and she would drive to that. But right now she is sold on the far away school.
DH says why can’t she stay close like her sister at community college…but she is on a different track from sister and her yearly cost at her favorite will be similar to the cost of the cc so it would be hard to tell her she can’t go. This is coming from a guy who went 12 hours from home for trade school! But he is getting sentimental about his little girls these days
I do worry a bit about her not coming back after graduation. I can’t say I wouldn’t love to have both my kids within a couple hours of home in their adult life. I fully expect that from my oldest but my youngest has wanderlust. She’s also very close to us and her sister though so who knows!
We never looked at it as distance by miles either. One of the in state schools was over 4 hours in the car- with no good airport. The school my daughter is going to is several states away but 15 minutes from a major airport with at least 4 direct flights (1.5hours) a day and Amtrak that will get her there and back overnight.
We looked at convenience and ease and then started hoarding miles to help offset costs.
@IBviolamom My daughter went to school about 750 miles from home. Her freshman year, she did the overnight Amtrak several times. It was long and I had to pick her up in DC. We offered her the opportunity to fly, but getting to Chicago (90 miles away) and flying home seemed like a hassle to her. Sophomore year, she needed a car for her student teaching so she would drive home, usually all in a day. If she needed to break up the drive, she would stop outside Pittsburgh and stay at a Hilton and use our points. Smartest decision we ever made about 8 years ago was getting a Hilton credit card. I can’t even count how many free stays we have had for travel sports, college visits and vacations.
@bjscheel I understand some of your concerns. We have a tight family too. Our daughter, who was fairly responsible to begin with, became more independent with the car because she was responsible for making sure she filled the tank, got the oil changed, filled the tires etc. She learned to navigate cold weather and snow, how to get an EZ pass, and how to stay in a hotel on her own. She is now working in Chicago (a 2017 grad), has continued to grow by negotiating a lease, a new puppy, a truck and 2 roommates. It’s all part of the independence process. And yes, I miss her. But we text, talk and/Facetime pretty much every day.
Will the kid otherwise have a car at school? How is the kid’s stuff going to get hauled back/forth or stored over the summer? Direct flights or connecting? How far away is the airport from the home and also from the school? How cheap/plentiful are the flights? Does the college parent’s favorite airline Southwest (ample free baggage allowance and no change fees) fly there or not? Does the airline where the parents have a gazillion accrued miles and preferred status fly to the school? Are you going to have to deal with winter weather? Is there reasonable train or bus service? Are there plentiful other kids from the home area at that school for car pooling? Etc. etc. etc.
Depending on particulars, a 600 drive may be no big deal but a 600 mile plane flight might be an expensive nightmare.
One of my kids went to school 1,300 miles away and it was easy/cheap to handle by air. Another attended 1,000 miles away and it is way more expensive and way less convenient. And it is always helpful to be within (even long) driving distance to have that as an option.
@northwesty - ^This is our philosophy. There is comfort in knowing we can make the drive in one day in case of an emergency. My student only applied to schools within a one day drive and had excellent options.
My daughter’s school is 500 miles away - an 8-hour drive without stops. So it usually takes us 9 hours. Sometimes she can get a ride with friends, but we still have to go at least twice a year to haul her stuff back and forth. She’s in a small town, so travelling by air is time-consuming and expensive. We’re going to get her a car next year, after her travel abroad semester. The cost for us to miss work, stay in a hotel, and purchase gas/food adds up.
My daughter went to college four hours away by car and that was the only option for transportation; no bus, no train, no plane. It was a nightmare and I’d never do that again.
OP, no way would I ask my parents to spend 20 hours in the car to pick me up and bring me back, and I wouldn’t have asked for that when I was in college. I’d fly, take Amtrak or rent a car.
@HappyAlumnus Just to clarify, I don’t think my niece asked her mom to go back-and-forth twice just to bring her home for her dad’s party. I think it was offered to her as an option. I think my brother and sister-in-law have just accepted that this is going to be part of the deal while their daughter is at college.
As far as emergencies go, sure it’s crossed my mind, but I imagine I would be able to get myself on a flight. Fortunately I live within a 40-minute drive from two major airports. At some point, she wants to study abroad so it would require a lot more air travel to get to her in case of an emergency. We are lucky that there are plenty of direct flights. And to be honest, if it was an emergency that was serious enough to require my presence I would probably be a ball of nerves and I don’t know how good of an idea would be for me to drive!
As far as her getting around at school, there is an excellent public transportation system where she is. It’s easy to use and inexpensive and can get her wherever she wants to go. And there are tons of things within walking distance in her very safe neighborhood. We noticed all these things before she committed to the school, but now that she is actually there we realize how great it is.
It must be nice to be able to afford to think that way.
However, mile on mile an airplane is so much more expensive than car or bus or train. Kiddo is looking at a college on the other coast. It’s close to an airport, we are close to an airport, but honestly we can’t afford money-wise to bring him home for more than Christmas. Some of the schools we are thinking about are a longer drive than the flight time to further colleges, but more economical, especially with ride sharing…
I’ve told my kids to try to pick places within 2 hours away, it just makes things easier. Living in the Boston area means there are about a bazillion choices.
I also said if you plan on looking at schools where you need a plane ride, might as well go warm so CA has been considered.
I just don’t see a reason for my kids to fly to someplace located in the middle of the country. It just becomes a pain with all sorts of car, plane, train, bus details to consider.
I have one 150 miles away, so it’s a 5 hour round trip for me. The other is 2000 miles away, and 26 miles to our airport and usually about 1.5 hours round trip for a pick up. For her, it’s 1 hour to the airport on her end (ride from a friend), 1-2 hours at that airport, 4 hour flight, then 45 minutes to home.
For me, I do better with the one 2000 miles away because it is just the 1 or so to get her from the airport. But when she had the flu in January, it was still 2000 miles. If I was the other one, I would have driven the 2.5 hours without worrying about getting back.
And another thing…the one who is the 5 hour round trip has learned to ask friends for rides to or from school. She sometimes gets a ride to within an hour of home and I pick her up from her friend’s house along the way.
“However, mile on mile an airplane is so much more expensive than car or bus or train.”
Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t - you have to check for the specifics. My son is going to college 1200 miles away and I’d resigned myself to driving him up for move-in, but based on some of the comments I read on CC, I checked how much it would cost to fly. Holy guacamole! Direct flights and only $160 each way (I’d do a round trip, but he’d only need one way) on Southwest. That’s actually less expensive than driving to my surprise. Even considering we’ll still ship a few boxes up, that’s a smoking good deal.
Of course that’s highly dependent on where you live, airlines that serve your area, how far from the airport the college it, etc. but for us, the flying sounds like a much better deal.
I agree. When D1 wanted to consider Colorado schools I made sure we did a trip. It was 4 1/2 hours each way to Denver. She decided it was too much of a hassle. When D2 wanted to consider a school in Iowa we made the trip. Only way to do it was to change planes in Chicago. Off the list. S3 will be going to school in Atlanta. 2 1/2 hours, lots of daily nonstops. Works for us.
My niece lives in the DC suburbs. They are looking at Syracuse and Ithaca but travel from upstate NY to DC is difficult. One of her friend’s parents ended up buying their kid a car so they could get home on holidays without spending all day traveling.
Agree to a point - time and cost and the payoff (advantage) of taking that on. One of ours is doing a 5 year program (CPA) in MO which is far and the travel takes a while (and it isn’t super cheap) BUT she got a huge scholarship that more than makes up for it.
My lax player goes to college in OH and it too is far BUT there are several direct flight options from our city and her school provides free shuttle service at major breaks so it works out and being an NCAA athlete she doesn’t get to come home random weekend anyhow.
My youngest is doing 2 hours away and that is best because she will need a car for clinicals and we don’t want her too far away with a car to maintain! She had some ‘cheaper’ options but not enough to deal with an 8 hour drive one way and the tolls/gas/my time and expenses to take her etc.
