Do you "go away to college"?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Living in Australia, and watching American TV and movies I learned about the tradition of going away to college - teenagers leave home to live at their university and afterwards move into their own place and for the most part never live long-term at home again. As I myself approached university age I realised that nobody around here does that. You’d think it would be the logical thing to do, since here on the west coast of Australia there are five universities, one of which isn’t even really recognised as a university except by people who failed to get into the other four, while over east there are about 50 (okay, maybe I exaggerate a LITTLE). Over here if you did good, you go to UWA or Curtin, if you did passably you go to Edith Cowan or Murdoch, and if you were rejected from UWA, Curtin, ECU, Murdoch and possibly TAFE you go to Notre Dame. Not a lot of choice there.

So I was thinking to myself - is the whole “going away” business just an American thing? Then I remembered every other country I’d lived in and how people there went away to college as well. I noticed that in those countries people tend to apply for whatever universities they’re interested in without worrying about where they are, while we just tend to stick to the ones we can drive to. I noticed that Australian universities don’t really offer board. I noticed Australian students that move out, tend to do so during or after university, rather than before. Anyway the point of my rambling is - do people “go away” where you live? Or do they stay at home and leech off their parents like us?

Because I was wondering if Australian teens aren’t more sheltered than their international counterparts, since in addition to the staying at home thing we also don’t have to work to pay our school fees while in school. Hmm.

2

It’s fairly common here in Canada I think, though not universal… most universities, especially in big cities, might have about an 80%/20% mix of visitors and locals… though that’s a pretty rough guess.

I did, though I didn’t go terribly far - went from home in hamilton to york univeristy in north toronto, which is maybe a little more than an hour’s drive. Went home regularly on the weekends but not otherwise.

3

Especially in big cities, there are some colleges in the US which are designed to be “commuter colleges” - i.e., you live nearby, apply there since it’s convenient, and just go there to take classes then go home. These places also tend to have a lot of part-time students, fitting in classes around work.

I went to a state university a couple hours away from where I grew up, which also happened to be a fairly well-respected institution (University of Wisconsin). There were a number of students there who’d grown up in that city, Madison; some of them lived at home, while others moved out and went to live in the dorms or in private apartments around the campus area.

4

I guess it depends on where you live. Most people in Montreal stay here to go to university, since we have four universities right in the city catering to a wide range of specialities; but it’s by no means unknown (my little brother did his BA at McGill and is now studying at the London School of Economics.)

On the flip side, a great many people come to Montreal to study; McGill has a very high proportion of students from away, whether from elsewhere in Quebec, elsewhere in Canada, or outside the country. In fact there’s a serious student housing problem, that was partially resolved a few years back by the somewhat Gordian method of purchasing an entire hotel and turning it into dormitories.

5

That’s not an American thing; there are plenty of dayhoppers here. You only see them on TV on family sitcoms that have long outlived their reason to exist.

6

In many US states there are private universities, state schools, and county or community (2 year) colleges.

The Community Colleges (one or two per county, depending on geography and population) are communter schools. Some students go full time because they couldn’t get into a 4 year school, some go because they are only after an assoiate’s degree, and some because it’s comparatively inexpensive and very conventient. Some of these have dorms, others don’t.

The 4 year schools are more traditional, dorms 24/7 campus life, students who couldn’t wait to get out of their parents houses, but still with a smattering of locals who take classes and return home. Many of these are in their 30’s and 40’s, (and older) finally going for that degree they didn’t (or couldn’t) get while still in their early 20s. Some of them commute and some stay on campus.

The you have grad schools. You’re likely to find both kinds of students there as well.

So there are many choices and many permutations. Take your pick.

7

I “went away” to a college that was primarily a commuter school. It’s the kind of place where you can go part time, full time, days, nights, weekdays, weekends.

I work at a college that is very much NOT a commuter school. Freshmen under 21 must live here unless they are married (that’s such a cute, old fashioned rule) or live nearby. Even the ones who live nearby prefer to live here because of parking and the fact that it’s an art school and they should be near the facilities.

So…it depends on the student and his needs, interests and abilities.

8

I work at a commuter college that has no student housing.

I went to a university at which freshman, sophomores and juniors are required to live on campus unless they were married or living with their parents/families. Seniors were allowed to get off-campus housing.

My parents only lived four miles from the university but I still chose to live on campus for the social experience, which was at least as valuable – if not more valuable – to me than the academic experience.

9

If you live close enough to a college you can commute. I was the only one in my family who didn’t go to Rutgers University, which was easy commuting distance from our house, although not a Community College. So I went away (So did my sister for her undergrad years, but she did grad work at Rutgers).

A lot of people attending the University of Utah live in Salt Lake, so they commute, too.
after school, a lot of people continue to live at home, at least until they get enough money to get started elsewhere. Some people never seem to move out, though.

I effectively left home after my sophomore year – after that I spent my summers at the college, doing reseatrch or whatever. When I was in grad school I lived there wherever that was.

10

I was exactly the opposite. I worked full time and had a life already. I was only a year older than my classmates (the first time, anyway. I dropped out and came back), but the idea of living in dorms already seemed so much like summer camp, that I could not imagine it. It seemed like an infantilizing experience, where people would, say, drink to the point where they had to be carried to their beds and taken care of, because they knew they would be. I liked having a landlord and real neighbors, who would steal my wallet if I passed out in the foyer.

11

Going away to university is the British norm, and pretty much a rite-of-passage for the middle and upper classes. There are exceptions, with some universities having a far higher rate of local students who stay at home, often from poorer backgrounds.

The entitlement to student loans is much much lower for those who stay with parents, reflecting the similar historical situation with maintenance grants - if you left home, they’re expected to help you pay your whole way, but if you stay at home, it’s expected you won’t need nearly as much money.

12

There are some Australians that go away to university. My husband went to Sydney University and lived on campus in a “residential college” (which, from what he says, sounds sort of equivalent to a fraternity on an American campus). He grew up just over an hour away from the uni, so while he could have commuted, he chose to live right there.

13

It depends on location, economic status, and how much a family cares about education.
There are always commuters at any university, say children of professors (though some live in dorms anyhow.) I grew up in New York, where there was a good city college system. In my parents’ generation almost everyone commuted to school, in mine quite a few commuted to Queens College, a quite good local university.

Then there are community colleges which, as people mentioned, are commuter only - no dorms. There are enough of them, in California where I now live, at least, so that no one who wants to go to one has to go far.

Economically, state schools are cheaper, so many parents force their kids to go to a state school to save money. Many are really good, so this is not necessarily a sacrifice. Some, to save additional money, will have their kids go to a local state university rather than one a bit further away, which might be better.
Finally, some parents don’t see the difference in where you go, and will send a kid to a community college because it is cheaper, even if the kid could do well in a four year school. One of my daughter’s teachers said right out that going to the local community college was just as good as going to Harvard. :eek:

I don’t know the breakdown, but around where I live now probably fewer than 50% of those attending college go away - but we have a plethora of colleges and universities. Probably true where I grew up, also, but most of the people in my classes went away.

14

I went back to school as a slightly older adult and started at a two-year commuter community college, transferred to a university, and went to the same university for graduate school. Now I teach at a regional university that is all commuter students – I went full circle!

15

For most of our better colleges and universities, the great majority of students move away and live at school. That is the sterotypical college experience and it is the one that fits the college ideal. At the better schools, you tend to find a mix of students from all over and a high percentage of them are very far away from home. Among the older parents that I associate with, they are generally fine with their child picking a school anywhere in the nation even if it is 3000 miles away.

I went away to college. It was in the same state but 350 miles from home so I couldn’t really go home on a whim and usually only went back home two or three times a year. My classmates were from all over the country and the world. I met my wife there and she is from Massachusetts (1700 miles away). I never returned home after I left at 18.

As stated above however, many, perhaps most people go to college close to home. There are over 3000 colleges and universities in the U.S. and there are fairly few areas without a few in driving distance.

16

I went to school in Rochester which is about 300 miles from where I grew up in Westchester County. After I was politely asked to leave the university, I moved back in with mom and got a job. Then after a few months I got my own apartment and that was that.

17

Since this is basically a poll, I’ll move it to IMHO for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

18

OT, where in Westchester did you grow up? I grew up near Peekskill.

I went to college in NYC. Even though it was only an hour or so away from home, I definitely moved away. I have not lived at home since.

19

I went away to college. I moved from the East coast to the West coast to go to Curtin :slight_smile: My lecturers all strongly encouraged anyone interested in graduate work to go out to the East coast though, for the libraries. Most of my high school mates went away to college too but we did grow up pretty isolated and with just UTAS as the local option.

20

Great OP, FlyingRamenMonster.

I would say it is very much a rite of passage in the US. The first American university, Harvard, was a training college for clergymen (as well as a place to “civilize” Native Americans). Well-placed young men went to Harvard from across the commonwealth to go through recitations and eventually graduate.

When they moved to campus, the university assumed responsibility for their upbringing. Students lived in houses near (or on) the campus. Tutors were responsible for overseeing and disciplining (usually quite harshly) students. There are great accounts of student uprising against brutal tutors who whipped or caned them. Essentially, this was the birth of in loco parentis - acting in the place of the parent, which is a philosophy that traditional residential colleges have assumed since 1636.

At the turn of the century (1900s, that is) there was heightened tension between students and administrators about the amount of control the institutions had over their lives (students could be expelled for trivial things like forgetting to turn in library books, while universities were held liable for damages caused by students at local taverns). By the 1960s in loco parentis had been seriously diminished, to the point that by the 1980s students could pretty much do what they wanted to do without reprisal from the university. Historically, in literature, film, and in the arts, going to college has become very much a rite of passage into adulthood for the middle class. (Military service might have a similar position for working class/lower-middle class families as well.)

There was a landmark court case in the 1980s that concerned a student who returned from a party drunk - and walked out of a third floor window, killing himself in the process. The university was found negligent, which re-introduced the issue of liability. So in loco parentis is a mixed bag here. Most four-year competitive colleges have some sort of residential program, but as many have described here, there’s a lot of variation. For instance, MIT was notorious for having a very relaxed residential system where students lived off campus in living groups or frat houses from their first year, but a series of high-profile suicides forced them to change their policy so that all first year students live on campus. It’s always been a requirement at Harvard for freshmen, and virtually all upperclassmen live in residential houses until they graduate. This makes sense given that the students at these schools are from all over the nation and the world, not just the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Most couldn’t live at home because of distance even if they wanted to.

Most American college students pursue postsecondary education 100 miles or less from home. I think Dopers likely are skewed into the more selective segment of higher education, where they may have gone to college across the country to attend school, or crossed the state line. But that isn’t the norm.

My own experience - I am from Austin, and it so happens that there is a world-class university 15 minutes from my house. I actually chose to move out and live on campus for a more “authentic” college experience. Plus I didn’t want Mom & Dad monitoring my whereabouts now that I was a respectable 18 years of age. My high school class of 200 had about six of us at the University of Texas, and I was the only one who lived on campus. Only three of us graduated - I think being in the new environment, though difficult to adjust to at first, helped me be a better student. Plus my entire peer group was doing the same as I was - studying 24/7, rather than running errands for the family, fixing dinner, or hanging out with friends who made money but didn’t have to study for exams.

At UT Austin, the flagship institution of higher education in the state (sorry aggies), students came from all parts of the state (especially the big cities like Dallas, Houston, El Paso, and San Antonio). I was always one of 2 or 3 kids in a dorm of 1000 from Austin proper. Most students moved into apartments by their second or third year - another rite of passage.