One way to get the best of both worlds is to look for LACs that are part of a larger consortium. The one’s I know best are the Claremont Colleges (they are all adjacent to each other if what is for all practical purposes one big campus), the five colleges consisting of Mt. Holyoke, U Mass, Amherst, Hamshire and Smith; the one that includes Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr. RPI has one with a lot of other colleges, but some of those colleges are more than a half hour drive away.