Having no car for nursing school?

[CarolynNAC1]

Sadly, I have to spend all my money on my last 4 nursing prerequisites (money that I have been saving up for 3 years now to buy my first car with).

But now I won't have a car for nursing school for getting to and from clinical sites. My whole point of saving money for a car was so that I could commute the 45 mins to school everyday and not have to pay the 10,000 dorm fee for 3 years.

But it looks like I will have to since the school is in a very rural area in Illinois, and it would take a 6 hour commute (in total) everyday with public transit.

So my question is how did you guys manage without a car in nursing school?

I'm especially worried about the Home Health clinical because it such a rural area that you will have to go very far and wide to get to other people's home.

Not to mention that I just counted the school's clinical listing site and there are a total of 59 various clinical sites. Life just got so much harder for me.

[2k15NurseExtern4u, BSN, RN]

Yeah, not having a car would totally blow. Idk how I would have done it without a vehicle. Have you considered taking out a loan to live on campus? It just may be a necessary evil. Good luck to you girl.

[SilleLu]

I also live in rural area and no way could have managed without a car. School will have no sympathy and expect you to make your own arrangements to get to your clinical sites. If you get lucky, you can offer a classmate to split gas money...but clinical groups may change often, so I wouldn't rely only on that. Good luck.

[StuffedBear]

Totally understand. I was like that in school. Nursing isn't cheap...surprisingly, noone informs you of hidden fees like that while as a nursing student.

This is what I did:

I became an Resident Assistant for my college. My services to the school gave me free housing and food expense. However, it is a real job with responsibilities. You will need to juggle that with nursing studies on top of clinical.

While living on campus, I do no own a car so I carpool with students near me to clinical sites. Pay a small fee with them...but isnt cheap...gas + parking kills you. Better off taking public transportation to some the sites.

So this is where talking to faculty will help. Inform them of your living situation so they may be able to put you at a clinical location easily accessed by you via public transportation. Also, some clinicals location was near enough that I biked there...about 4 miles I believe but had to endure the rain and dark sometimes. Just make sure go early and you bring a change of clothes and change into your uniform in the bathroom before checking in with your clinical instructor.

Other recommendations:

Live off-campus with some friends or students to cut cost. its so much cheaper than living in dorms. Again, carpool with fellow students to sites. Bike to campus from offcampus to save more money!

In conclusion,

There are ways around the living on campus method. But you must plan and speak up and take action.

Good luck

[GuEsT78]

You illustrate a point I try to drive home to young adults who have been indoctrinated with anti-car propaganda. Outside big cities, a reliable and inexpensive car is often a necessity. It saves you valuable time. It lets you live where the rent is cheap. It lets you shop where the prices are lowest. It lets you take jobs almost anywhere, including better paying ones that more than cover car costs. And it your case, I makes your clinical assignments far easier.

Options:

1. You might spread the word about your situation among friends, family, and at church or like institutions. Lots of people today have older vehicles they hardly ever use. One might be happy to loan that spare car to you to tide you through to graduation.

2. Talk to your school advisors about your situation. It's unlikely that you are the only nursing student with this problem. Perhaps they can come up with a way to pair assignments, linking a student with a car with one without.

Remember, there is a solution to your woes. so don't despair. Keeping plugging away until you find it.

[Jules A, MSN]

I have had a couple of students who didn't drive and they had to rely on peers for rides to clinical. It hasn't ever a problem in the rotation I teach.

[flyersfan88]

10,000 for 3 years.....you could find a car to get you from point A to point B and take out a car loan for less than a third of that.

[JBudd, MSN]

Look into scooters, yes I know, what to do in bad weather, etc. But I got mine for only a few thousand, there are cheaper used ones. Gets 60 miles to the gallon, and parking is usually easy because many places have a few reserved areas for motorcycles and scooters close in. The city parking garage here doesn't charge for scooters!

The bigger bikes can do highways, smaller you learn all the back road routes to places. Wear pull on gear over your scrubs or just change when you get there. My first one was only a 49 cc motor, didn't go over 35mph, but got me just about anywhere I wanted to go.

[Wrench Party]

I used a combination of riding my bike, taking the bus and driving my truck to remote clinical sites to get through nursing school. Look at all your options, inform your instructors about it (I was able to get preference on almost all of my sites because they knew I liked to ride my bike) and take out a small car loan for a used car. I paid less than $5000 for a decent small truck, and I still have it 5 years later.

Depending on your area and situation, you don't have to be trapped in a car for all of school.

[TakeTwoAspirin, MSN, RN, APRN]

I normally think leasing a car is a bad idea (you don't get anything for your money at the end of the day) but in your case it may solve some problems. You will have new, reliable, and maintenance-free driving for your clinicals for a lesser amount than you would have to pay for a car loan. You could basically get a brand new car for the same monthly expenditure as you would have to pay for an old car that is possibly unreliable unless you really know what you are buying. While you won't have anything at the end of the lease, you will have saved yourself a substantial amount in living expenses and student loans that will take you years to recover from.

Certainly something worth thinking about in your situation I think.

[emmy27]

Is there a reason a loan for a car or a loan for the classes is out of the question?

I just think the odds of you running in to a problem in attending a clinical session doing clinicals in a rural area without a car are so high that it's worth whatever it takes to have reliable transportation. You'll be adding untold stress and inconvenience (and in the nursing school context, inconvenience and stress are already SO PREVALENT that you don't want to add additional hours of commuting/waiting around on a ride/trying to coordinate rides/freaking out when rides fall through/etc to your already large load of stress and study) by not having one. And if a transportation problem causes you to miss or be late to clinical, you could easily wind up out of the program, and that's a MUCH bigger financial risk than a small student loan.

[emmy27]

And I know others have advised telling your instructors that you're carless in hopes that they'll be kind on your clinical sites, but I tell you honestly: people in my program who tried to use (legitimate!) sob stories to get their clinical assignments the way they wanted them inevitably found themselves with whatever site they'd been trying to avoid. Clinical slots are tight nearly everywhere and EVERYONE has reasons why they do/don't want various sites and groups. Accommodating all the special requests is impossible, so some faculty really take against attempts to manipulate the assignment. At least in my program, you got what you got and were expected to adapt.