<p>Only upper-middle-class families can really worry about this; middle-class families whose children are not eligible for a substantial amount of aid have to weigh financial considerations against this.</p>
<p>But I think this is silly. Colleges are manufacturing this idea of “spreading your wings” and growing and “expanding your horizons”, and more importantly, that those things can’t be done without shelling out the money for your child to live on-campus or far away from home. The thing is, college students are going to spread their wings anyway if they want to. They’re older and thus under less parental supervision, typically. My sister lives at home and commutes to campus, but she’s grown significantly in the last 4 years that she’s been in school. Would she have grown more if she had gone away? Maybe, maybe not. She didn’t have that option open to her, though, so it’s a moot point. She still has access to the things that colleges provide, and my parents have been largely uninvolved in her process of selecting a major, courses, etc., so she’s done what she wants.</p>
<p>I also went to college within 100 miles of my home - more like 20 miles. In the beginning, I did go home fairly often (maybe 1-2 a month) to eat, do laundry, whatever. I loved my parents and I liked being around my younger siblings. But I still made friends and I rarely hung out with high school friends. (Besides, what is wrong with hanging out with HS friends anyway? I went to a public Magnet HS; most of my HS friends have graduate degrees and are working professional jobs now. It wouldn’t have been much different from hanging out with my college friends. All of us were high achievers, with high GPAs and SAT scores; most of us went close to home, and the ones I know who went far away usually went close to a state they had lived in before and had family near). As time went on I hung out at home less and less. Now that I am in grad school 900 miles away, I wish I lived close to home again. I’m still very independent, but sometimes I miss my siblings and parents and wish I lived close to them.</p>
<p>My younger sister-in-law just graduated last May, and she went to school a 3-hour drive away from home. She went home pretty much every weekend; she liked being home with her parents and sister. But she still got very involved at her campus - she was an RA, she went Greek, she was the President of this or that and did community service.</p>
<p>I think it’s a marketing thing. Colleges want you to believe that you need to stay in their expensive dorms and go far away from home to “grow” when really you grow simply by the process of getting older and doing new things. If students want new experiences, they will get them regardless of whether they live at home or far away.</p>