Anyone’s college kid have a long commute?

[MamaLema]

DS has found a college program that he’s interested in that would take him an hour and a half to get there 1 way so 3 hours commute time daily.

We live beside the subway and we are the first stop and he would have to go to the last stop (1 hour) and then take a bus (half hour)

I’m worried he will grow tired of these commutes since the program is 3 years and we have long hard winters with many public transportation delays which will make some commutes even longer.

Would anyone like to share their experience?

 

[disykat]

My son went the same distance and although it is commutable for some, my son lived in the dorm and then off campus. Many non-traditional students commute, but most traditional students from our area live over by the school. I've known some people who commute freshman year to avoid the expensive dorm requirement and then find multiple roommates and live over there most of the week the rest of the time.

(I say multiple roommates because people really don't have to have their own bedroom and bathroom and it's way cheaper if you share! When I was in college we had four girls in a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment and thought nothing of it. We still had more freedom and space than in the dorm and it was waaay cheaper.)

 

[Jennasis]

My college commute was up to 2 hours each way depending on how awful Long Island rush hour traffic was. I survived.

 

[tvguy]

My son was an hour from home each way. But his school required underclassmen to live on campus, but he was home most weekends.
My daughter was 2 hours from home each way. She came home about every 5 or 6 weekends.
Then she went to England for a year, didn't even come home for Christmas.


So I guess that is the scenic route to saying that I would not have your son commute, but live on campus or near his college.

 

[Southernmiss]

My son's college was an hour away. He lived in the dorms, then an off campus apartment.

To me, I'd prefer he have the commute time to himself to study, etc instead of the stress commuting can add.

 

[Poohforyou]

Is living in the dorms or an apartment out of the question? Personally I think that's an important part of the college experience but I know it isn't possible for everyone. My daughter is about 4 hours away so commuting isn't possible.

I had a commute of about 1 1/2 for work for 6 years and it got old pretty quickly.

 

[EscalatorKid]

The most I did was a 45-minute commute. I debated dorming, but my college was not even five minutes away from where my parents commuted to work. So, if they could drive, so could I.

I think a 90-minute commute might be a bit much, especially in the winters. I know that 45 minutes sometimes became 90 minutes and on more than one occasion, was about 3 hours in wicked snowstorms.

That being said, the amount of money it adds to dorm is incredibly high. When I transferred into a SUNY 4-year college in 2006, Room/Board was $13,000+ a year. That would have more than doubled the cost of my entire education, including my Master's.

To me, that was a couple of cars.
To me, that was a lot of future rent or mortgage payments.

Is it possible for him to go to a community college that has a transfer agreement with that college? Your first two years are often Gen Eds and he could get those at a closer school and then finish at the 4-year school... Where he could rent a nearby apartment for those last two years.

 

[Colleen27]

I commuted about that far for the last two years of my degree, and I wouldn't recommend it. Not only does that commute time get much worse in bad weather, living so far from campus really restricts on-campus involvement in internships, pre-professional organizations and other programs that would help a new grad to network or stand out from the pack on their entry-level job applications. Depending on his field, that can make a big difference in his options after graduation.

 

[scrapquitler]

DS has found a college program that he’s interested in that would take him an hour and a half to get there 1 way so 3 hours commute time daily.

We live beside the subway and we are the first stop and he would have to go to the last stop (1 hour) and then take a bus (half hour)

I’m worried he will grow tired of these commutes since the program is 3 years and we have long hard winters with many public transportation delays which will make some commutes even longer.

Would anyone like to share their experience?

Three hours a day is a lot of time to spend commuting.n If his commute is that long it will be a lot more difficult for him to make friends and have the social experience of college and it will be difficult to get involved in any extracurricular clubs/sports/activities. It seems like living on (or near) campus would be much better. He could spend a lot of time working, studying or socializing on campus instead of sitting on a subway or bus.

 

[Pumbaa_]

Can he work a schedule where he is only taking classes 3 days a week? Is online classes possible for any if the classes? Can he work in the subway?

It is very doable if he is committed

 

[barkley]

i did it for 3 years-but it was 90 minutes each way and i was driving by myself so using public transportation and being able to study sounds heavenly.

i wasn't going to college for the social experience and the field i was going into didn't then/to this day doesn't give a flip about campus involvement/extra curriculars. it came down to dollars and cents for me-living at home was less expensive and i had found a job close to home that was willing to let me work around my classes/lots of weekends/tons more on breaks so that i didn't graduate with student debt.

 

[meggiebeth]

I live in the U.K. and when I attended university in London (for three years) I commuted. It took me about an hour and a half each way. I never found the journey too bad as I generally slept on the train. I do feel like I missed out on some things like socialising and living on campus, but I saved so much money by commuting. Commuting was very expensive for me (at times, over £3000/ $4000 a year) but it was still much cheaper than the alternative - renting accommodation and having to buy food for myself.

Honestly, a three hour trip isn’t bad at all over here - loads of people make that commute into London (or even longer) as job and education opportunities are better there. What I did by second and third year was try to schedule classes on three or four days so that I wasn’t spending $35 on train tickets to come in for a one hour lecture.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Didn't have a transport that long for college but did have a 3 hour commute round-trip for work for several years. What with laptops and notebooks you can get quite a bit of work done during the downtime or just read various textbooks/the newspaper/etc. The ride can be as productive as you chose. Also useful that some public transport systems have free WiFi now. As pp pointed out setting up a school schedule of 3-4 days for the 12 credits (think that's the average per semester) needed to be a full time student still leaves plenty of time for extracurricular activities or work/study.

 

[BadPinkTink]

I do that type of commute every day. Depending on the day, I usually spend about about an hour on a city bus and then walk for 30 minutes.

I am also just finished a night time BA degree. I went to class 2 nights a week, leaving my house at 7.30am to be in the office for 9am, left the office at 4.30pm, 30 minute city bus to campus, class from 6.15pm to 9.15pm, then city bus home and finally getting back to my house at 10.30pm. Most of my classmates had the same type of commute / schedule as none of us lived near the campus.

Its good training for life, with the current financial climate, people cant afford to live near their place of work and especially here in Ireland, the average commute time is 1 hour.

 

[Poohforyou]

The most I did was a 45-minute commute. I debated dorming, but my college was not even five minutes away from where my parents commuted to work. So, if they could drive, so could I.

I think a 90-minute commute might be a bit much, especially in the winters. I know that 45 minutes sometimes became 90 minutes and on more than one occasion, was about 3 hours in wicked snowstorms.

That being said, the amount of money it adds to dorm is incredibly high. When I transferred into a SUNY 4-year college in 2006, Room/Board was $13,000+ a year. That would have more than doubled the cost of my entire education, including my Master's.

To me, that was a couple of cars.
To me, that was a lot of future rent or mortgage payments.

Is it possible for him to go to a community college that has a transfer agreement with that college? Your first two years are often Gen Eds and he could get those at a closer school and then finish at the 4-year school... Where he could rent a nearby apartment for those last two years.

Wow, that was a lot for room and board back then. My daughter is in college in DC and her room and board this year is about $16,000.

 

[amcnj]

I commuted to a NYC school using the train and subway, and then walking time. I believe the train was about 45 minutes, the subway 15, and of course the waiting times for both. I never minded it, but did try and schedule classes so as to cut the number of days of commuting when possible. I later drove a one hour each way work commute for 14 years, followed by a 1.5 hour each way work drive for 18 years, so I guess it turned out to be a good training ground!

 

[tvguy]

Wow, that was a lot for room and board back then. My daughter is in college in DC and her room and board this year is about $16,000.

That's about what my son's room and board was in college in 2005-2010 and my daughter's 2009 to 2014.

 

[nkereina]

Sorry if this has already been answered, but can the OP's son drive? I'm not sure what area this is, but I know where I live, driving would be faster than the subway plus a bus, even during rush hour traffic. And delays would be more in a driver's control than a commuter's. I know I would probably tolerate a longer commute better if I could drive myself to and from.

 

[firefly_ris]

My situation was different because I didn't use public transport, I had my own car.... I went to a nearby (15 min away) community college for 2 years first to take care of general eds, then transferred to a 4 year college. It was a 25 mile commute one way. I tried to group classes on M-W-F if possible to reduce that a little -- sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. One semester I had a morning class, then I had another class at I think 6 or 7pm... so I'd drive all the way home and then back again at night. I do not mind driving so it didn't bother me. If there was no traffic, it would only take me 30-35 minutes, but this college was near BWI Airport, so at a bad time of day, it could take me close to 2 hours to get home, as I took 95N.

I guess other factors depend on his major... I was already doing jobs as a web developer at the time so I didn't have to be at a specific place at a specific time for a job, plus there wasn't really anything on-campus that would be bolstering my resume for that line of work at the time. And I'm not a deeply social person so that wasn't important to me either. I was extremely fortunate that my parents were able to pay for my education, but it was also important to me to keep the cost as low as I could, so on-campus living was not something I thought about. Not to mention, if you lived on campus you couldn't have your car there the first year (even though I was in my 3rd year of college) due to parking limitations, and I had some anxiety about not being able to have my vehicle with me -- I need that freedom (I still am like that... when carpooling places I usually drive!).

Now, the public transport thing could be a whole different animal... the subway would be OK but buses in the winter could potentially be off schedule, or other factors. So I'm not sure about that. On the plus side, he wouldn't be driving so he could study or sleep during his commute!

 

[bigbabyblues]

One school my DS is looking at (HS senior) is about an hour and 15 minutes away. If he goes there, he will be living in a dorm, not driving back and forth every day. (Public transportation doesn't exist here, but he wouldn't do that either).