[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by Nancy

Like everything else, I think this is heavily dependent on the individual student and the family circumstances.

With our two kids, one is extremely self directed and also had a very solid idea of what he wanted to do, and I actively encouraged him to go out of province. The other suffers severely from ADHD, which includes the delayed maturity and lack of some life skills that is associated with that, and would have drowned on their own.

The other factor is family circumstances. If family finances allow for them to be fully supported while living away from home, then that simplifies things a lot. If they are taking on student loans to study away from home, then I would want to be sure that they are not graduating with either a degree they are uncertain about, or in a program that does not have a definitive job opportunity at the end. The last thing you want to do is try to start life with $100,000 in student loan debt and poor job prospects. They won't be able to afford rent or a mortgage, and will just be moving back home anyway.

With our ADHD child, we wanted to be sure that they had time to mature, and would be able to afford a "second chance" at school if they had to drop out or changed their minds. As it is, they also have worked away from home every summer for many years now, so they've had the ability to build independence that way.

I couldn't agree more. However, I have a niece who was in that situation and travelled overseas where she landed a job teaching English, and made enough in a reasonably short period of time (a year or two) to pay off her loans.