I’m always fascinated when posters make recommendations for colleges thousands of miles from the OP’s residency. I understand the posts mean well and the schools recommended are great schools but IMO most kids will stay relatively close to home. For example being from the Chicago area my D20 is looking no further than 350 miles or so from home. I know kids do go across the country for college but don’t most end up going closer to home?
I think a lot of kids do. We are from the northeast so a lot of kids stay here because there are so many good schools. A lot of kids apply to schools far away but when the matriculation list comes out, about 75% are usually staying in New England or New York. My D wants out of NE. The closest school she’s is applying to is 3.5 hours away and many are a plane ride away. I think what’s interesting is when people suggest schools that are really difficult to get to from where the OP lives. We can easily get to Chicago, Minneapolis, Ohio, and the eastern seaboard but a school in Kansas or Montana would be a really tough travel day each time she wanted to come home. And of course cost would be. a huge issue as well.
Sometimes a suggestion for a student does seem ridiculous but perhaps someone else reading the thread might get an idea of a school they hadn’t thought of. I’ve learned a lot on here about small LAC’s I otherwise may have never heard of just by reading other people’s threads and suggestions.
Yes, the vast majority of students stay close to home. However, the CC community represents a small slice of population.
We are from Chicago also. One kid at Michigan (4-4.5 hours away and one kid at Beloit College 1.5 hours away. Both by car. Both can get home by Amtrack or Bus.
We looked at schools like Berkeley, Cornell etc. We are thankful in the reality that they didn’t land there.
Its so nice to take a short drive to visit them or they can come home on a whim. It would be a nightmare and expense to visit those schools from Chicago but we had a fantasy about going to California and visiting etc.
For my own kids, I feel that living in another part of the country is part of their education. From upstate NY one went to Texas and another is in Atlanta. My last, though, is looking likelier to stay closer. Another factor is geographic diversity possibly helping with admissions.
Ability to easily get home is overrated in my experience. It may be comforting in your first year, but after that, I’m not convinced it matters. How often do Juniors come home? 2x? 3x? 10x? With that said, I think location is more important to future job prospects. Is the MA kid attending school in TX going to find it difficult to find a job back home? Is the MI kid attending school close to home going to easily find a job in NYC?
Every kid is different.
Every one above makes very good points. I think some OP’s who come on here with very basic of info (state they live in and major for example) probably need to provide more information. On the other hand I have seen suggestions, for an example, of a kid in Portland Maine talking about the state school and asking about other schools and someone suggesting a school in Bozeman, Montana
We took a different path on this one (but I agree most stay closer to home). We’re in FL but encouraged our kids to look OOS because there’s a whole world out there. In fact, starting when they were little, on vacation we would frequently drive through college campuses close to wherever we were. I remember my wife telling them that one of them has to “go here” when we were at U Colorado in Boulder after a trip to Estes Park. Our attitude probably has a lot to do with our backgrounds (wife is from San Fran and I am from Boston and have lived in DC as and NY as well). We view FL as a place to come later in life, not to build a career (just our opinion before you Floridians jump all over that - btw we’ve been here 26 yrs).
S is in school in NC and D hopes to make it to NY.
We live in a very insular medium sized city, where the vast majority do not leave and as a result things do not change much (for better and for worse). We’ve always encouraged our kids to leave for college, as my spouse and I did, in order to gain an appreciation of what their hometown lacks but also its uniqueness. My son only went a few states away, but my daughter is 1900 miles from us. It is certainly a challenge but we budgeted for air travel and we’ve been able to see each other 5-6 times a year, outside of holidays. The school and city my daughter chose were the right fits for her career interests.
And for people hunting for merit, often the big scholarships are down south so suggestions can seem far from home for students not in those areas.
Our own D looked at schools in the NE, mid Atlantic, and Midwest. Fit was more important than location for her but I have to admit that I’m very happy she’s a 3 hour drive away, and not a flight.
My oldest went to a school 2,500 miles away. My youngest is 500 miles away. My middle kid is 5,300 miles away. 
Everything would have gone great except my oldest fell ill with schizophrenia. He would have been the LAST kid I expected to suffer that. He would have fallen ill if he’d been right around the corner, so I don’t regret that he went to school cross country. I do think we should have brought him home sooner, but hindsight’s 20/20.