Affording a Horse in College

[clanter]

[QUOTE=Jodieee;7763831]
Thanks for all of the responses. I like hearing different people’s experiences, even if they aren’t all what I am hoping to hear! I did want to add that my college is only an hour from home. The barn he would be boarded at would be the barn I ride at at home, so I know everyone there well and would be able to work in exchange for lessons. ![/QUOTE]

Even a bigger NO… my wife last year completed nursing … I didn’t see her for almost two years, but she graduated number 2 in her class

The amount of course reading you have to do is great.

An hour to the barn, a couple hours there, and hour back oh plus work to pay for the lessons/board…

Our youngest daughter took her horse to school as a senior, she was at College Station and the board there was cheaper than us keeping him here at home… but even so, she rarely rode him while in school.

The BEST way would be like our oldest daughter who went to college back east, riding was a PE course that she took every semester… school had an indoor and an eventing course… she rode twice a week every week…

[Texarkana]

I find it funny that folks are so incredibly vehemently against people taking their horses to college. Especially when they never did it themselves.

Sure, it’s wise not to own a horse in college… but like I said in an earlier post on this thread, it’s always wise not to own horses period. They are gold sinks.

I brought one horse with me my freshman year and had two horses by my senior year. I rode and saw my horse nearly every single day. I worked part-time 10-20 hours a week and picked up odd jobs like house-sitting. I did all of this while taking 18+ credits a semester in the sciences and graduating cum laude. And I still had time to make friends and do college-like things.

Did I work hard? Absolutely. I’m no super human and I was definitely burned out on school by the end. But I’m still here and I don’t regret it.

The take home message should be that college WILL be much harder with a horse and it would be a better idea to wait, at least a semester. But if it is truly important to you, it can be done… just know it ain’t easy.

[Dispatcher]

well, I for one have to chuckle at the title of this thread. Are the college entrance exams for horses the same as they are for people? Must be a pretty special horse that can get into college…

[OveroHunter]

I somehow made it work in college. I was in the same boat as you, my parents paid for school and gave me money for food and gas, but any extras were on me. I worked around 20 hours a week at a pizza place my first two years of school. Freshman year I took weekly lessons and Sophomore year I leased a gelding. It was fun, but it didn’t take up too much of my time. I really would recommend going out and having fun in college. I somehow managed work, horses, and a social life my first two years.

By my junior year I was partied out and decided to work as a trail guide at Southern Cross Ranch instead of tossing pizza dough. Long story short I ended up marrying the owners son and have lived here for 7 years. I own 3 horses and take weekly lessons, but still miss my first two crazy years of college!

[soloudinhere]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;7763988]
I find it funny that folks are so incredibly vehemently against people taking their horses to college. Especially when they never did it themselves.

Sure, it’s wise not to own a horse in college… but like I said in an earlier post on this thread, it’s always wise not to own horses period. They are gold sinks.

I brought one horse with me my freshman year and had two horses by my senior year. I rode and saw my horse nearly every single day. I worked part-time 10-20 hours a week and picked up odd jobs like house-sitting. I did all of this while taking 18+ credits a semester in the sciences and graduating cum laude. And I still had time to make friends and do college-like things.

Did I work hard? Absolutely. I’m no super human and I was definitely burned out on school by the end. But I’m still here and I don’t regret it.

The take home message should be that college WILL be much harder with a horse and it would be a better idea to wait, at least a semester. But if it is truly important to you, it can be done… just know it ain’t easy.[/QUOTE]

You did all that, with your horses an hour away? I’m not sure I believe that. I was a dual major biochemistry/molecular genetics and I worked ~25 hours a week. With undergraduate research, schoolwork, and spending one night a week with friends I would not have had time to spend 2 hours a day in the car driving to the barn.

Some friends kept their horses at the university barn ~10 minutes away, and they were able to do it, but it probably worked out the same with co-op chores that barn required. I had a horse my sophomore and junior years boarded about 1/2 hr away and I was perpetually exhausted.

[beau159]

I went to 8 years of college for an optometry degree. I did not take my horse with me.

For undergrad, I was about an 1 1/2 from home. My parents farm and ranch so they kept my horse for me during the school year. I’d go home on some weekends to help on the farm and ride my horse.

The summer before I went to optometry school, I boarded my horse in the city where I lived and worked for that summer. I didn’t have a horse trailer because I couldn’t afford it. I borrowed a trailer here and there to go to a show every now and then. It was tough but it was nice having my horse.

When I moved 4 states away for optometry school, there was no way I was taking my horse with me. I was WAY too busy to have time for a horse, much less have a job to pay for his expenses. I was introduced to some people by another student and I went riding with them usually once a week on a Sunday to get my “horse fix”. Wasn’t the same as it wasn’t MY horse but it was something.

My last year of optometry school I was moving every 3 months for medical rotations. I couldn’t imagine trying to find a new barn every 3 months. It would have been much too difficult. Plus 3rd and 4th year you’ve got boards to study for (and pass).

While I missed being involved in horses fully during those 8 years, I’m happy with the choice of not taking them with.

You’ve got to decide what YOU NEED but I would agree with the others that you should at least go a couple months without your horse first and see if that’s what you truly want.

[starhorse]

I brought my horse to school with me and riding was a huge part of my college experience. My best friends were from the equestrian team, but we had lives outside of riding.

I paid for my horse in college by pasture boarding her at the barn, rather than the stall. The school’s affiliated equestrian center was a gorgeous barn and stalls were a fortune - but I was able to board her outside with a shed and two other mares for about half the price.

I also half-leased her. This gave me free time to have a life (but in reality, I ended up just catch riding the nice boarders horses… tough life, eh?) and helped pay the bills.

Also worked 2-3 days a week as a groom for someone at the barn who had 3 horses. It was good money, and she was flexible enough with her riding schedule that I could work around my class schedule.

I was a double major at a liberal arts college. Probably not as demanding as a nursing program, but hey.

That being said… if the barn had been an hour away? This would never have worked. I’d reconsider that part.

[poltroon]

I did try to keep my horse my freshman year in college. Like the OP, he was an hour away.

The horse was shortchanged because I couldn’t ride enough. He was ridden by lots of other people in a way that I felt didn’t suit him. I was grumpy and not riding well because I didn’t have enough time in the day. My trainer took me aside and said I was burning the candle at both ends and that I wasn’t doing anyone any favors.

Since I went to school, it’s only gotten harder, in terms of the cost of college and horses compared to the wage you can expect to earn for part time work. And I wasn’t even in the situation where I had to work to cover my bills.

It was bitterly painful to sell my horse… but the reality is that it opened up huge opportunities for me, opportunities that made it possible for me to later event extensively, to go to top drawer clinicians, and now to have horses at home. And, the horse ended up in a better spot too.

(Incidentally, my first horse after college was purchased from a girl who similarly was heartbroken to sell hers as a freshman.)

Since OP doesn’t currently have a horse, and is only this month starting school, she is in a great place to do school, save what money she can, and possibly get a job or a gig working with other people’s horses in the meantime. She could even take lessons in a new discipline or volunteer with a therapeutic riding program (a great fit for the nurse resume) or maybe spend a summer riding and training in Europe.

[Texarkana]

[QUOTE=soloudinhere;7764261]
You did all that, with your horses an hour away? I’m not sure I believe that. I was a dual major biochemistry/molecular genetics and I worked ~25 hours a week. With undergraduate research, schoolwork, and spending one night a week with friends I would not have had time to spend 2 hours a day in the car driving to the barn.

Some friends kept their horses at the university barn ~10 minutes away, and they were able to do it, but it probably worked out the same with co-op chores that barn required. I had a horse my sophomore and junior years boarded about 1/2 hr away and I was perpetually exhausted.[/QUOTE]

For 3 of my 4 years of undergrad, I was at a small, private college where I lived on campus. My horse lived about 25 minutes away from campus and I worked both on and off campus jobs. I was silly and transferred to a state university close to my home for my junior year (I wanted to be close to my boyfriend, gah). I commuted an hour one way to school. My horses lived about 15 minutes away from my house… the opposite direction from school. I worked off campus during that time.

So yes, I was able to do that as a pre-vet/biology major. I’m not going to say it was easy, but it was not impossible.

[WildandWickedWarmblo]

Choose your parents carefully!

If you cannot do that, and if they cannot or will not pay your horse expenses while you are in college, then work at the barn, maybe mornings on weekends, or 1/2 lease your horse. There are lots of ways to earn enough money to afford to keep your horse while in college. One friend paid her horse’s board expenses by feeding afternoons at her barn and she used her student loans to pay the rest of her old eventer’s expenses. Fortunately she chose a career where she is now making a lot of money as a pharmacist, so she can afford to pay back her student loans.

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=soloudinhere;7764261]
You did all that, with your horses an hour away? I’m not sure I believe that. I was a dual major biochemistry/molecular genetics and I worked ~25 hours a week. With undergraduate research, schoolwork, and spending one night a week with friends I would not have had time to spend 2 hours a day in the car driving to the barn.

Some friends kept their horses at the university barn ~10 minutes away, and they were able to do it, but it probably worked out the same with co-op chores that barn required. I had a horse my sophomore and junior years boarded about 1/2 hr away and I was perpetually exhausted.[/QUOTE]

:eyeroll:
In college I triple majored, took a 150% course load, TA’ed a seminar, was active in student organizations, was a resident assistant, and still rode at the barn 25 min away and had a sale horse during senior year. As long as I was doing something productive between the hours of 6am and 7pm, the work got done and I could still visit with friends in the evenings.

In law school I attended class three days a week and spent the other four riding five hours away. First year I kept the horses at the campus barn but then decided the horse industry around school wasn’t worth the effort so I moved them to VA and rode there.

I have friends with similar stories that were equally busy doing other things. My one friend attended law school even less than I did and still graduated, studied out of the country third year but still planned every single 3L event complete with vendor contracts and venue agreements from across the pond. Somebody at college paid for their college education with a software development company he started completely on his own (no help from the rents) in high school. By the time he got to college he was paying his own tuition,had a pilot’s license and his own plane that he flew as a hobby, and then developed some software for the college and charged them $50k to do it. People can get all sorts of sh*t done.

I don’t understand this perpetual phenomenon of trying to psych people out that stuff isn’t possible. OP is considering owning a horse while getting a degree, not while being chief of staff at the white house. If you can manage your time and make decisions you can fit a lot in.

[Chief2]

I am not going to tell you yes, or no. I am going to tell you to do the math and run your numbers. If you don’t have a job, look around, see what is being offered and get an idea of what the businesses are paying. If you are already employed, then that part is done.

Then, put together all of the potential bills you will have to pay on if you are going to be supporting a boarded horse without your parents’ help. What does the local farrier cost, how often; call the vets and find out how much vaccinations from the vet will cost (once or twice a year) plus the requisite farm charge bills; add on the costs of feed, hay, and boarding prices. If you can easily fit that into your finances, then add in the additional supplies you will be responsible for: supplements, blankets, fly spray, etc. Then figure out how much money that will leave for you to spend on extras you will need at school: personal items, fees that come up, snacks, coffee and sandwiches with friends, movies out, a concert here or there, etc. Subtract the bills from your paycheck, and see what is left.

I get it that you miss your horses, but the reality of this for a college student who is paying for it without the help of mom and dad is that supporting a horse is a very heavy burden. The pay for the jobs that hire college students is traditionally low, which leaves them faced with two real options: work more hours, be more tired for school and have less time for activities, events and friends, or work less hours, do well in school, and have less cash flow available. We see this all the time at our barn. The kids who can make it work are those who go to the community college, take no more than three courses at the most, work close to full time, keep their horse on field board or self care, and run through their lives like rabbits to make it work. They can usually make it to the farm once a day. Students who go away to school and have to do this financially on their own usually end up leasing out the horse to 1. pay the bills and 2. keep it being ridden because they can’t even put together the time to get to the farm once a week to care for it. It usually ends up on field board, without supplements because they can’t really afford them, or they end up selling the horse if they can’t find someone to lease it. Either way, they cannot afford to pay for lessons, and show maybe once a year at a local fair because it’s quick and cheap. This is a heavier burden than it appears to be, and takes up a lot of time if you are the one shouldering it. So, before you make a move on it, run your numbers.

[soloudinhere]

[QUOTE=meupatdoes;7764660]
:eyeroll:
In college I triple majored, took a 150% course load, TA’ed a seminar, was active in student organizations, was a resident assistant, and still rode at the barn 25 min away and had a sale horse during senior year. As long as I was doing something productive between the hours of 6am and 7pm, the work got done and I could still visit with friends in the evenings.

In law school I attended class three days a week and spent the other four riding five hours away. First year I kept the horses at the campus barn but then decided the horse industry around school wasn’t worth the effort so I moved them to VA and rode there.

I have friends with similar stories that were equally busy doing other things. My one friend attended law school even less than I did and still graduated, studied out of the country third year but still planned every single 3L event complete with vendor contracts and venue agreements from across the pond. Somebody at college paid for their college education with a software development company he started completely on his own (no help from the rents) in high school. By the time he got to college he was paying his own tuition,had a pilot’s license and his own plane that he flew as a hobby, and then developed some software for the college and charged them $50k to do it. People can get all sorts of sh*t done.

I don’t understand this perpetual phenomenon of trying to psych people out that stuff isn’t possible. OP is considering owning a horse while getting a degree, not while being chief of staff at the white house. If you can manage your time and make decisions you can fit a lot in.[/QUOTE]

We have established through multiple threads that you are superhuman and the greatest person who has ever graced the earth with her presence.

Anyone in statistics will tell you an outlier should be excluded from the analysis, so let’s just write you off as the most stellar example of humanity to ever exist and move on with reality for the rest of the mere mortals.

I was asking someone else with a SCIENCE degree if they did that. Most people who did not do science majors do not understand the time commitment involved with labs/research, etc. There is no “only go to school 3 days a week and do all my seminars from France” for a science student, so I was specifically asking THIS PERSON how they were able to accomplish what they claim to have accomplished. I now see that she was in Biology, which is not the same as the degree I did and thus our experiences were not comparable. The OP is a nursing student who will be spending 25+ hours a week outside of class in practicals at hospitals that can be quite far from campus, it is absolutely not the same as doing a regular degree.

But man, you sure like to throw out there in every thread that you’re a lawyer, don’t you?

[GoForAGallop]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;7763988]
I find it funny that folks are so incredibly vehemently against people taking their horses to college. Especially when they never did it themselves.

(snip)

The take home message should be that college WILL be much harder with a horse and it would be a better idea to wait, at least a semester. But if it is truly important to you, it can be done… just know it ain’t easy.[/QUOTE]

Well…your last paragraph is all those that you talk about in the first paragraph are saying. Literally no one is saying that it’s impossible. That’s silly. But yes, it’s a lot harder.

Particularly for a nursing major. As I said right off the bat, I know a nursing professor. She loses about 25% of her students every year. It’s a HARD major and requires a lot more than just class time. The practicals themselves are a part time job, and then you add classes, and then a REAL part time job that actually pays you, and you start running out of time to ride.

Most of us are also ignoring the fact that OP will be getting/is counting on (I’m not sure if this has been discussed with parents or is just assumed) significant financial assistance from her parents to help support this horse. (It also sounds like they are paying for school.)

What happens, if god forbid, the parents need to pull that support after OP already owns a horse? In my area, a set of 4 shoes is in the $200/range. An extra $1400 a year is a lot to absorb into a college kid’s budget. Same with the $400 it regularly costs for spring shots, etc.

It is different than if she is going into it knowing that she is paying for everything, right off the bat.

For the most part, everyone was simply suggesting that she hang on for a year or two, explore her other options, take some more lessons every week if needed, etc. A month of board can buy a whole heck of a lot of weekly lessons, at least in my area.

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=soloudinhere;7764768]
We have established through multiple threads that you are superhuman and the greatest person who has ever graced the earth with her presence.

Anyone in statistics will tell you an outlier should be excluded from the analysis, so let’s just write you off as the most stellar example of humanity to ever exist and move on with reality for the rest of the mere mortals.

I was asking someone else with a SCIENCE degree if they did that. Most people who did not do science majors do not understand the time commitment involved with labs/research, etc. There is no “only go to school 3 days a week and do all my seminars from France” for a science student, so I was specifically asking THIS PERSON how they were able to accomplish what they claim to have accomplished. I now see that she was in Biology, which is not the same as the degree I did and thus our experiences were not comparable. The OP is a nursing student who will be spending 25+ hours a week outside of class in practicals at hospitals that can be quite far from campus, it is absolutely not the same as doing a regular degree.

But man, you sure like to throw out there in every thread that you’re a lawyer, don’t you?[/QUOTE]

Well, I’m not the one spending my time on the internet telling people what they can’t do, telling other people you don’t believe what they did do, and then repeatedly leveling paragraphs worth of personal attack on yet another person (so far we are at twice this week, I believe?), which personal attack, you might notice, you have not once been given in return.

The only thing that is soloudinhere is the sound of you trying to p*ss in everyone’s cheerios for whatever reason, but if that’s what brings you joy I suppose it’s your perogative.

[showhorsegallery]

It depends. Are you a super-drive Type A person, able to juggle lots of things? Or are you laid back and go at a slower pace?

I wanted a horse my whole life but parents couldn’t afford one. I needed gas money, so the summer before college I got a job working as a bank teller “part-time”. Minimum required hours for job ended up being 30 a week. I soon found myself making enough money to pay for gas and have enough left over to pay board on a horse.

I saved all my paychecks until I had enough to buy a horse. NOBODY thought this was a good idea. I did it anyway. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

My first two years of college I went to a community college. There was almost no social component to attending this particular community college and there was no campus life. I worked practically full-time, rode my horse 4 times a week, went to school and got decent grades, and spent time with my boyfriend. Still had plenty of time left over to watch tv.

Then I transferred to a college several states away and moved the horse with me. This time I was living on campus and found myself in a much more social environment. I got up at 6am and worked at the barn to pay board while I looked for a more traditional part-time job. I partied, I went to class, I joined a sorority, I volunteered and got good grades.

That always needing to have a job to pay the board meant I worked harder all the time. I was more careful with my time and ended up taking on several entry-level jobs in my field of study so I could stop working at the boarding barn. Had I not needed to pay for the horse I may not have done that. When I graduated I already had a job and experience, so I didn’t have to go job hunting after graduation. I just increased my hours from part-time to full-time.

Looking back, I could not have done anything better to set myself up for success than buy the horse. I still have her today. She’s going to be with me 'til she dies. I didn’t miss out on any college experiences, and I look back fondly on the time I spent cramming it all into 24 hours a day.

*Edited to add: (and I know this is going to make me sound like an ass) But I’ve never had to study much to do well in school. I remember almost everything I read, and I read really fast, so I save a lot of time on studying that maybe other people wouldn’t be able to spare

[arbiter]

If you won’t have student loans, then do what you want. I’d wait a year or two, just to look into other activities.

[AKB]

My daughters kept their horses at home, an hour drive from school, through college. It worked well as they were able to ride regularly.

If you will need to work to support a horse, start working now. Can you get a job as a nurses aide in the hospital, two evening a week or every weekend? This will help you save money and figure out if you have time to work and ride while keeping your grades up. It will also make you a better nurse. If you can pull this off and your grades are good at the end of the semester, buy a horse.

[Moderator_1]

Let’s keep the thread productive and focused on providing the OP with advice and experiences vs. getting into it with each other.

Thanks!
Mod 1

[clanter]

#40 reported as possible Spam…FIVE YEAR OLD THREAD