I basically didn’t bother coming home until the end of semester as the combination of maxed out courseload, part-time work around campus, EC/social activities, and expense meant it wasn’t worth coming home.
That and Thanksgiving fell so close to finals that I felt it was best to stay up on campus, attend Thanksgiving dinner at a Prof’s house/with classmates, and come home to enjoy the winter break.
Some of those social activities included road trips to different college campuses to visit HS friends in the early to mid part of the semesters.
Granted, part of my positive experiences with being on a rural/suburban campus was because I grew up in NYC and I attended a HS where the overwhelming urge was to get out of the city to experience a different environment provided we got full/nearly full FA as most of us felt like major urban cities…been there done that.
That and the campus cultures of some private colleges…notably Columbia and NYU were such that expenses for activities like eating out and clubbing were on the exorbitant side for most of us at the time whereas that wasn’t as much the case with campuses outside major urban areas.
Still felt the cost was quite high when I attended grad classes at one of those campuses despite the fact I was in a much better position to afford those prices after college.