No idea where DH stands on the issue, but I'm open to DD going anywhere. There are tons of good colleges where we are now, but we may not be here in a decade.
Post by irishbride2 on Jan 14, 2015 12:39:17 GMT -5
I will 100% push them to go away. I think it helps kids grow up and experience new things. My parents would have been disappointed if I had stayed in the state, partly because our state schools are not good but mostly because they wanted me to spread my wings.
Well DH would love for E to attend his alma mater, which is 3ish hours away. And a good school.
I would prefer she not go to a local school. I would also prefer she not go to a handful of other universities in our state, so maybe that is limiting her. My preference would be someplace that has the program she wants, an active student body, and not too far away to hinder visiting over breaks.
The only parameters I had were $$ driven. If I wanted to not take out loans, I needed to go to a school in the budget.
We want the, to go away to school. We both did and had wonderful experiences. We are fortunate in that MIL and FIL max 529s for both kids every year as a tax shelter for themselves, so they will have a decent chunk of money to use for college.
Personally, I never even considered staying close to home for college, despite living in the NYC metro area. I wanted to go far, far away and the only con for my top choice was that it wasn't far enough.
I would hope he'd go away to school. I fully support that.
However, if he wants to go to the Uni where I work (50% discount) I'd be okay with that as long as he was living on campus. If that's the case, I'd also try to sell him on a semester abroad somewhere too.
Post by bunnymendelbaum on Jan 14, 2015 12:59:33 GMT -5
I got as far away as I could, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere.
I'd be happy either way, but we now live in a big metro area, so the likelihood they will stay local increases. My DD1 has said multiple times over the last 2 years that she is she going to live with me forever.
The state of Texas currently provides a tuition and fees waiver for children who were adopted from foster care, like DS was. I don't talk about this much because we don't really expect it to still be in effect in 13 years when DS starts college, but if it is, we will strongly encourage him to go to a state school unless he has a full scholarship to a private school. We are still saving what we can to help cover costs, of course.
Wherever he chooses to attend, he will be moving out of the house to attend college. I am a big believer in the college experience, including living in dorms at least the first couple of years. I know not everybody feels the same way, but life in the dorms was really one of the best parts of my college experience.
Post by carolinagirl831 on Jan 14, 2015 13:01:07 GMT -5
As many people have said, it's so much more than close to home vs far.. I went to an excellent big ten state school. A great school for not crazy high tuition. I originally wanted to go to a neighboring state big ten school and my parents said no way! the tuition difference isn't worth it. I knew I would be going to grad school for what I wanted to do and picked a private more expensive school. I was glad I had not gone crazy with undergrad.
So much depends on grades, scholarships, what field they are looking into, is it financially worth it? is grad school in the picture as well?
Anecdote alert! I went to college within a 45-minute driving distance of my parents and then spent my 20s bouncing around various places much further away from them, including a couple of stints abroad. As recently as a year and a half ago, I was living in another country with DH and DD and am very open to doing so again should the right opportunity present itself.Â
Going to college locally is no guarantee that your kid(s) will stay in their home area long-term.Â
Well, anecdotally, I went to school locally and stayed local. Of course, I also met H here in college, got married shortly afterwards, and never had any reason to leave – though we do daydream about moving to SoCal every winter. lol. I realize there are no guarantees.
We had this conversation last night after I watched RWOBH and started crying when they dropped Kyle's daughter off at college, lol. The rational part of me wants him to go wherever he wants, but I secretly hope it's close enough (a few hours) that there are plenty of visits. Fortunately, there are plenty of good state schools so my hope is he ends up at one of those.
Post by InBetweenDays on Jan 14, 2015 14:08:31 GMT -5
I would prefer they go away to school to explore different parts of the country. I grew up in the Midwest, went to college in New England, and now live in the PNW. I loved the various places I've lived and feel that it helped me feel more certain of where we decided to make "home".
I wouldn't mind if they stayed in state, but there are only a few colleges that I'd be excited about them going to. The main state university is amazing and I'd love for them to consider it, but it is pretty hard to get into.
Post by redpenmama on Jan 14, 2015 14:18:21 GMT -5
We won't be living where we do now, but I would be fine with them going away. I went out of state for college; my H remained in state but moved away from home. We both had great experiences. That said, if we lived in a state with state-funded discounts (like Bright Futures in FL), I would certainly push for a state school. Another factor that plays a role for us is that my H is a university professor/administrator, so the kids would likely receive a deep discount if they attended his school (or another school in the state university system, depending on the state), so it'd be hard to turn that down.
I don't really care. There are 4 kids in my family and we kind of did different things when it was our time for college and it worked for each of us. I'll help DD make the decision but ultimately it's up to her. If she goes far away and hates it then she can always transfer to a closer university and visa versa.
Post by Velar Fricative on Jan 14, 2015 16:49:29 GMT -5
She can do whatever she wants. I honestly have no preference on whether she stays closer to home or moves further away.
Even if my choice to live at home was "social suicide" (though it actually wasn't), the choice to live on campus would have been financial suicide for me. I have enough loans as it is! And I was pretty independent in college even with Mom as my roommate. If I had a helicopter parent I'm sure I would not have come out of this not minding the commuter experience.
We will be encouraging her to go away for school, but not too far. I'd like her to be at least 2 hours away, so she has the experience of being on her own, but be close enough to come home when she is homesick. Let's get real...so she's close enough for me to visit all the time!
I'm in favor of our kids going far, far away from here.
We live in SE Michigan and everything around here is auto industry related. Even teachers and healthcare professionals life and die by the auto industry. We were the first ones into the recession back in 2008 and the last ones out, it seems. Those years were BRUTAL. I saw so many families, personal friends, lose their homes or have to separate. In some instances, one spouse had to leave to find work elsewhere and one had to stay behind because the house was underwater. After several years of separation, we are now hearing of numerous friends who are filing for divorce. It has been awful to be in SE Michigan the last few years.
I never want my kids to go through this. I will encourage them to go to school out of state so that they can make contacts elsewhere and/or meet their spouses elsewhere. If they go to school here and/or marry hometown spouses, it is that much more difficult to break ties to this area. I want them to go where there is lots of opportunity and not everything is dependent on one industry. I hope they pick somewhere good for us to retire to.
In replied first and then read what everyone else said. I think it's funny that we all have different ideas of what "local" is. I read some replies that said, "I went away it school. It was about 2 hours away." Whereas, I consider that to be local. I think anywhere that you can easily drive home for a weekend is local. To me, going "away" means a place where you would need at least a long holiday weekend to mak it worth driving home. Anything requiring a train or plane is "away."
But given price difference I might offer to pay for something like a year of study abroad if he went to an in-state public school. I think we'd still come it ahead.
The year I studied abroad, tuition at the university in Spain was something like $1000 for the whole year, compared to many, many, many times that at my home university. My father actually called my university's financial aid office, told them he didn't understand why we were paying US rates that year for me to be taking all of my courses at a foreign university and that he was considering letting me stay on to finish my degree in Spain given the cost differential. Lo and behold, my financial aid that year was miraculously adjusted to include a much higher percentage of grants instead of loans and the out-of-pocket cost to my parents was lowest my junior year of all my years in college. I was also pleased that my overall undergraduate loan debt was lowered as a result of my father's call.
In replied first and then read what everyone else said. I think it's funny that we all have different ideas of what "local" is. I read some replies that said, "I went away it school. It was about 2 hours away." Whereas, I consider that to be local. I think anywhere that you can easily drive home for a weekend is local. To me, going "away" means a place where you would need at least a long holiday weekend to mak it worth driving home. Anything requiring a train or plane is "away."
I think it depends on a lot of factors. Is the school a commuter school so most students go home on weekends? How much does parking cost (or are students even allowed to have cars)? What other things are there to do in the city/town where the school is? What is the student's personality -- do they miss being around family/the place they grew up?
I went to school in Providence, RI and one of my roommates was from Stamford, CT. I think she went home maybe once or twice a semester plus Thanksgiving. My freshman roommate was from NYC, and he went home at least once a month.
Post by polarbearfans on Jan 14, 2015 21:04:05 GMT -5
I think living away is very important and a big part of the college experience. Growing, meeting new people, all the activity that happens 24/7.
I wanted to go at least a couple hours away. My family said that even if I went to the college 20 minutes away, I would be living on campus. I ended up going to school a couple hours away, mainly because I knew it was a city I wanted to live in. My childhood plans always included living where I live.
i really don't care. i would be a little apprehensive if the distance was cost prohibitive to coming home, but that would mean something overseas.
i was 12 hours away from my parents and it was fine. i was solidly independent, but close enough that i could carpool with friends and getting home for breaks was never a financial hardship. h was 3.5 hours from his parents and that also had a lot of perks. far enough away that they couldn't check up on him all the time (if they had wanted to, they were pretty hands off anyway), but close enough to go home for a weekend if he wanted to.
Post by pinkdutchtulips on Jan 15, 2015 0:20:28 GMT -5
i don't have a preference ...
my sister went to CAL (30 mins from my mom's house) but she never lived at home and my mom was really good about letting her be. i went to school 300+ miles due south (UC Irvine) and loved every minute of being 5+ hrs from home.
it'll be up to dd where she wants to go to school CAL - great !, UCLA - great !, Penn State - awesome !