In the town I grew up in, everyone had a car by age 16. There is a bus that comes through town once an hour in either direction during rush hour, so public transit is basically non-existent. By car, this town is 45 minutes from Washington, DC. You would either get a car from your family because they have enough money, or you would start working at age 14 to save up money to buy one yourself. You learn to incorporate the costs of car ownership into your life at an early age and just work enough, or take out enough student loans to pay for it. Cost-of-living calculations done by universities to determine how much you can borrow every year include transportation costs which are often calculated assuming car ownership.
Do people from your university actually come by car? That is such an expensive way to travel and in my experience very few student can afford that
It’s unfortunately heavily car-centric. Many students drive.
In the US, most students drive if they live off campus. Even many of the ones who live on campus keep cars around.
How do you even pay for that? I struggle to have enough money for everything I need. If I had to pay for a car I would be deep in the red.
Yeap. Now you know one of the reasons it’s expensive to be poor in America. A car is practically a requirement in most places.
In the town I grew up in, everyone had a car by age 16. There is a bus that comes through town once an hour in either direction during rush hour, so public transit is basically non-existent. By car, this town is 45 minutes from Washington, DC. You would either get a car from your family because they have enough money, or you would start working at age 14 to save up money to buy one yourself. You learn to incorporate the costs of car ownership into your life at an early age and just work enough, or take out enough student loans to pay for it. Cost-of-living calculations done by universities to determine how much you can borrow every year include transportation costs which are often calculated assuming car ownership.
At my school, some years commuters make up over 50% of the student body…