You are also discounting the wear and tear on a vehicle/oil, tires, etc. It isn't just gas prices that are an issue. Sorry, but I would take a $150 flight over $80 gas and 12 HOURS of round trip driving-assuming you are doing that in one day. If not, you add in $100/hotel room, each way, and now your round trip flight is less then a car trip up and back, even on an expensive flight.
Yeah, I'm discounting wear and tear because making a long drive to/from a college campus 3-4 times per year really isn't going to make a significant difference in the life of my car. How many miles does the average person drive in a year? I think it's around 10,000 -- so 3-4 trips back and forth to a college 6 hours away would add 1000-1400 miles to the year's total. More? Yes. Enough to make a significant difference in the life of the car? No. I can see that it might make a difference to a person who's leasing a car and has limited miles to drive, but that doesn't matter to us.
Also, I wouldn't get a hotel room, much less one each direction -- we live in the land of open spaces, and we don't think twice about making long drives. For example, last week the prom dress my daughter wanted couldn't be found in her size /color choice here in town, so I called around. After work on Friday we made a three-hour drive to pick it up. I didn't tell her what I was doing, and the look on her face when she came in late Friday night after a school event and saw that dress waiting for her was worth every minute in the car.
I suppose the real answer is, If your child picks out a college far away, consider your personal cost to get back and forth and consider that in the decision-making process.
I don't get why everyone on here is almost trying to convince me now to go far away from home . . . I also HATE to fly, will I do it if I have to?
I'm not trying to convince you anything about
distance -- except that you should think seriously about what's best for you personally and to consider realistically the cost of transportation.
Since you hate to fly, you should be realistic about that too. Don't tell yourself it'll be okay, you'll live with that detail -- if you hate flying, then that's a big negative for far-away colleges.
For my own children, I'd prefer them to go 2-3 hours away. That's a very do-able drive -- in their early years, I could easily leave work, drive up to get them, and bring them home for the weekend. In a real emergency, I could be there in a reasonable amount of time. BUT at the same time, it's far enough away that they have to become independent; they can't run home mid-week to do laundry or eat dinner at home.
I do not see the car as a necessity either. I have 4 cousins who all went to 4 years of school and none of them had a car for any of their 4 years there. They all went to schools near big cities so public transportation was near and I have already said that a requirement for me is to be near a city and part of the reason is to have public transportation there.
I disagree:
I did two co-ops in college; both would've been completely impossible without a car of my own. One of the co-ops didn't give me all that much in the way of experience, etc., but the second one turned in to a real job after college, and it still looks great on my resume. Also, I met my husband there -- not that that could've been predicted.
My student teachers are all a good 20 miles and across a county line from the university, and we don't have public transportation. We do get a large number of student teachers at our school, so many of the students car-pool, but counting on someone else for a ride ALL THE TIME isn't possible. It'd be a rare student teacher in this area who could complete his or her student teaching semester without a car.
And when my daughter reaches her junior-senior clinicals, it'd be possible for her to use busses when she does the hospital portion of the class, but NOT when she's at the nursing home. Sure, she could beg other students for rides, but I haven't raised her to be a mooch. Just like the student teachers, it really wouldn't work here.
I agree that freshmen/sophomores don't really NEED cars on campus. When they need to leave campus only occasionally, coordinating their schedules with the city busses isn't a big deal. But Juniors and Seniors will likely lose out on important opportunities if they don't have their own transportation (like the two co-ops I mentioned above), and waiting for the bus DAILY in the SNOW (which will be the reality for my daughter) would get pretty old in a hurry.
Of course, as I said earlier -- good, bad, or otherwise -- we have very little public transportation here. We can't change that. That's probably why our colleges all allow freshmen to have cars too.
My advice to you (not that you want it or need it but at least it's free
)
1. Go to college close to home. From what you have described so far, you would be much better off sticking close to home. We do have a different definition of close to home. If you really want to avoid inconveniencing your family and you really want your mom to get you when you are sick, I would stick to someplace that is 2 hours or less from home.
2. If you stick close to home, I do not think you will have any need for a car. If you are 4 to 6 hours from home and you intend on going home as frequently as you seem to think you will, I would get a car because it would be more convenient on your family.
3. I would avoid student loans for most undergraduate degrees with very few exceptions. Journalism and history, the two majors you have mentioned, would be be including in undergraduate degrees where I would avoid loans.
I'll second all of that advice.
Nowhere did I mention that I want to go 6 hours away. I have said a few times that I want to go no more then 4 hours away so I do not even know why 6 hours keeps coming up when people address me.
Of course, it could be convenient, but not necessary for those students. 
). DD is interested in going into the medical field, for now anyway.
