<p>Good advice CPT.</p>
<p>Yes, consider the local cost of living, and check into the cost of off-campus housing. One public university my daughter looked at had reasonably priced freshman housing, but all of the upper class housing on the campus was owned by a private developer who charged $9,000 per student - just for for 9 months of housing, and without even providing a kitchen. In that case, off-campus housing was also expensive and limited in supply. She instead choose a private college with a large supply of high quality and very reasonably priced housing.</p>
<p>As noted above, there are some private colleges where the students throw around money, and a middle income student may not be able to keep up, and may feel left out. </p>
<p>There was a study that found that, when it came to money, happiness was affected by your social group. If a person had similar disposable income to people around them, they were more likely to be happy. However, if the person with the same income instead spent most of their time around people with much higher incomes, they typically felt much more unhappy on the average.</p>