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Every year, many families in India face the same question when a child gets into a coaching programme in another city: should the child go alone, or should one parent, often the mother, move too? A good place to start is counting what the move really costs the whole family, not just the child.
What does it cost when a parent moves for coaching?
The national average is small next to a move: the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Education found that households spent an average of ₹6,384 per student a year on private coaching at the higher secondary level, and ₹9,950 at that level in urban areas (Press Information Bureau, NSS 80th round, April to June 2025). That is an average across all private coaching, not the price of a coaching year in another city. A move is a different budget.
When a parent moves, the family runs two homes. List these before you decide:
Rent, deposit and broker fees in the coaching city
A second kitchen and a second set of bills
Train or flight tickets home for festivals, emergencies and family events
Income the moving parent gives up, now and in their career later
Extra help at home: a cook, tuition or childcare for a younger child
Our guide to the hidden costs of JEE coaching has a fuller list of costs to plan for.
How does it affect the parent and siblings left behind?
The money is easier to count than the strain. The parent who stays runs the house and a job alone. A younger brother or sister may feel that the family's attention, and savings, have gone with the elder child. The parent who moves may live in a rented room with no friends nearby, with their whole day revolving around one child's results.
None of this means you should not move. It means the family needs a plan for the people at home too: a fixed weekly video call with everyone, a promise to the younger child that their events still count, and a date when the arrangement will be reviewed. If you have two children at different stages, read our family plan for one child preparing for JEE and the other in Class 6.
Is it better for the child than going alone?
Sometimes. The local evidence we found is about stress, not about parents. A 2023 study of 180 students aged 13 to 17 in Kota found that 44% of coaching students had high academic stress, against 3% of non-coaching students (Shekhawat and colleagues, Industrial Psychiatry Journal). In the same study, 33% of coaching students lived away from family, twice the share of non-coaching students, and most students in both groups relied little on active coping and heavily on avoidance coping.
That study compared two groups at one point in time. It does not show that a parent living nearby lowers stress. What it does show is that the coaching year is demanding, and a child who keeps worries to themselves needs someone who notices. That someone can be a parent in the same flat, or a parent who calls every evening and visits every month.
Ask the coaching centre what support it offers. The Ministry of Education's guidelines for coaching centres, sent to states and union territories in 2024 for consideration, advocate prioritising counsellors' and psychologists' support within centres (Press Information Bureau). Wherever your child lives, Tele MANAS is a toll-free national helpline, 14416, offering tele-mental health counselling round the clock (Press Information Bureau).
A checklist to decide and plan the move
Go through these as a family, with the child and any siblings in the room:
Why move? Write the reason in one line: safety, food, health, or the child asked. If the reason is "everyone does it", pause.
Can the child manage alone? Think about cooking, waking up, handling money and saying when they are stuck.
Price both options. Hostel or PG with no parent, against a rented flat with one. Include lost income.
Plan the home side. Who cooks, who drops the younger child at school, who covers if someone falls ill?
Protect the moving parent. A part-time or remote job, a hobby, a local friend.
Set a review date. After the first term, ask: is the child coping, and is the family?
Agree an exit. If it is not working, coming home is a decision, not a failure.
If your child often does not know where to start when studying at home, Fermi's AI tutor works out what a student already knows and builds a plan for the session, so your child sits down to a clear next step.
Still weighing the city itself? Read whether your child should study in Kota or stay in their hometown before you sign a lease.
