<p>Students and parents need boundaries between comfortable and too close.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/fashion/when-college-is-close-to-home-what-are-the-boundaries.html?ref=fashion&pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/fashion/when-college-is-close-to-home-what-are-the-boundaries.html?ref=fashion&pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>With commentary by CC’s Sally Rubenstone.</p>
<p>I think this is something people fuss about only when it’s unusual.</p>
<p>In Maryland, it is far from unusual. Our flagship state university, the University of Maryland at College Park, is less than an hour’s drive from our state’s two main population centers (the Baltimore and DC Metro areas). Vast numbers of students who officially live on campus can go home whenever they want to. </p>
<p>Different UMCP students make different choices. </p>
<p>Some go home every weekend. Some even have weekend jobs at home. Some spend some weeknights at home as well, especially if they don’t have classes the next morning. Others never go home except during the official breaks. And still others make choices somewhere between these two extremes. My own son, when he was a UMCP student, did not routinely come home for weekends, but he did come home for medical and dental appointments and when he wanted to shop, and he would sometimes stay at home overnight on those occasions. That’s what worked best for him. Other kids make other choices.</p>
<p>And somehow, despite all this variation, the kids mostly seem to do just fine. Maybe it’s because for them, this is not a weird situation. It’s a situation that applies to something like half of their classmates, and nobody seems to make a big deal about it.</p>
<p>
This is my S1 at a different school. He rarely comes home just to visit, since we are regularly in his college town for ball games or to visit relatives. He’s far enough away that he’s “away at school” but close enough to take care of these kinds of things.</p>
<p>I was a commuter for my first three semesters, then moved into my sorority house. I went home fairly often, as my off-campus job was very close to my parents’ house and it was easier to use their washing machine. I was a little more free to come and go as I pleased but my parents (especially my dad, God rest his soul) were the ones who had trouble with boundaries. He drove by every day, unless he was traveling, and if my car wasn’t there and should have been (or was there and shouldn’t have been,) I heard about it! Once, when I had an early dental appointment, I went to see my boyfriend du jour at his fraternity house afterwards. Sure enough, I got a call that day: “What was your car doing in back of the XYZ house at 8:30 in the morning?” I explained what was going on and I got “Well, we thought you let So-and-so drive your car home.” Umm, not hardly. How stupid did they really think I was?</p>
<p>It seems to come up often around these forums that either the parents’ or the student’s geographic preferences make it more difficult to find suitable schools in terms of academic offerings, net price, etc…</p>
<p>The article posted seems to say… pretty much nothing. It’s about as low on content as you can get. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve always commuted and it’s never been a problem. My parents don’t bother me about what hours I’m out or what I’m doing or anything. I always pretty much stayed at school all day and just went back home to sleep and shower.</p>
<p>When dorming for 8 months is nearly 10K and shared apartments regularly run $700/month, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to live on your own when you don’t need to. Over 4 years at $700/month, that’s $33,600 that didn’t need to be spent.</p>
<p>My daughter ruled out a university center of the State U. of NY that is closest to us–about an hour. She said that she has two friends with siblings there, and they come home every weekend or every other weekend to do their laundry.</p>
<p>On the other hand, she doesn’t want to go too far–maybe 5 or 6 hours by car.</p>
<p>When I was in college, they referred to those kinds of schools as suitcase colleges… kids often went home on the weekends since they lived so close. I did that my first semester… went home every weekend except for two, then second semester only came home for spring break.</p>
<p>But because it was a suitcase college, I decided to transfer my junior year to a larger school in a metropolitan area because I wanted to be somewhere where there were things to do on the weekends and people to hang out with.</p>
<p>teriwitt, I had mixed feelings. It’s a big school and even if 25 percent of the kids go home on weekends, that leaves a lot of students on campus. It wouldn’t be my first choice for my daughter, but it would be a very low reach for her, affordable, and with strong departments that match her interests. But a girl wants what she wants!</p>
<p>UMD-CP is not a “suitcase school” by any stretch of the imagination. I’m always bemused by the pervasive notion on CC that there is only one right way to go to college, as if somehow the quality of the education is in direct relation to the number of hours it takes the student to get home. Maybe that’s what parents have to believe when their kids insist that they absolutely must attend a school on the opposite coast but I’ve never seen any evidence to support that it makes any real difference.</p>
<p>Don’t all schools, both large and small, private and public have students whose families happen to be local? What’s the big deal?</p>
<p>Finances are a factor. One of my daughter’s friends transferred form a college across the country to one near his home because going to a college where he could commute was so much cheaper. Room and board is not an insignificant part of your college tab.</p>
<p>DS went to a school 2 hours away. He never came home except for holidays or special occasions. We visited him once or twice a semester and it was always planned in advance. We had a no “pop-in” rule.</p>
<p>My ‘suitcase’ college was three hours from home and I would say back then, at least 50% of freshman and sophomores (so basically anyone in a dorm) went home on the weekends. At least that many, maybe more. The biggest bar night in town was Thursday nights because so many students left for the weekend (and the drinking age was 18, so freshman and sophomores were legal drinkers). </p>
<p>
Sorry I wasn’t clear in my post following yours. When I said ‘those kinds of schools’, I meant it in a generic way as the title of the article suggests, not any specific school. I did not mean for it denote any specific school. In fact, I don’t even know what school your daughter ruled out; and I never mentioned UMD-CP at all Joblue.</p>
<p>^^
Sorry for misunderstanding, teriwtt. From your comment it seemed to me that you were responding to Marian’s post about Maryland.</p>
<p>It’s funny how different cultures develop at various schools. My own university was only 2 hours from my family’s home and even though I’m sure lots of kids went home frequently, no one would have ever thought it was a suitcase school, either. Apart from holidays, I probably never went home more than once or twice per year.</p>
<p>DS school is two hours away, and he comes home only for the holidays or for special events with his gf. We do visit for football games and concerts. We are in that sweet spot where he has all the independence but we don’t have to worry about expensive plane tickets, coordinating travel or health emergencies. Most of his brothers are the same way and do not come home on weekends.
He is 30 minutes from one of the flagship schools and his hs classmates often come home for hs football games and to hang out with hs friends who attend the satellite campus. It seems to be more about individual preference and their connection to the campus. Those that are coming home most weekends have not found their people, joined a significant campus organization, etc.</p>
<p>Our son attends our flagship school, which happens to be 25 minutes away…in 3 1/2 yrs he’s never once just come home for the weekend just to hang out. In the early years, we’d meet him for lunch on campus about once a month. Now it’s less. Because he’s had an apartment since the end of freshman year, he’s always spent the summers over there and half the xmas break as well. I’ve always said that in the aggregate, we see our son less than many parents whose kids go to school on the other side of the country.</p>
<p>My daughter wants to go away to school. Far away. For a variety of reasons, but mostly financial, that is not likely to happen. I assured her that if she ends up nearby, esp at one school that’s only 30 minutes away, that she need only come home for breaks, if that’s what she wants. I remember the feeling of wanting to be on my own. I think it’s a good thing, a necessary thing.</p>
<p>Silly article. Boundary issues can surface just as easily electronically as in person. And if there aren’t issues with students depending on parents to solve their problems or help with school work, or with parents trying to supervise their kids, then I see nothing inherently wrong with contact between them. Unless, of course, the parent is popping over to campus to peer in through the dorm windows, as in the classic Onion video:
[Facebook</a>, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids | Video | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/video/facebook-twitter-revolutionizing-how-parents-stalk,14364/]Facebook”>http://www.theonion.com/video/facebook-twitter-revolutionizing-how-parents-stalk,14364/)</p>
<p>Only NYT can write a story about college students and forget 40+% of students who attend community colleges.</p>
<p>[A</a> Record 43% Of US College Students Are Enrolled In Community College - Business Insider](<a href=“http://www.businessinsider.com/community-college-has-grown-over-the-years-2011-11]A”>A Record 43% of US College Students Are Enrolled in Community College)</p>