Everyone talks about how college helps you mature but I think I was mature before college, what do you really think? Does college help you grow up?
I don’t think it has, but then I’m still a sophomore so there’s plenty of time. In reality, there will always be people who never grow up and are just as mean and immature as adults as they were as kids.
It’s like you are asking if your marriage will be successful. Some people go to college and they attend the classes, make friends and join clubs. They develop academically, socially and even spiritually for some of them. There are also some people just skip classes, have junk food and stay in their rooms all day long. There is no way to guarantee that you will grow if you do not commit to it.
There’s no guarantee you’ll mature, but if you live on campus, I think it’s pretty likely you’ll change, and most likely for the better. You’ll have more experience with dealing with people in close situations where interpersonal skills are important.
There are some people who hate it and drop out after a semester, specifically because of social stress, but I think it helps most people change for the better, and mature.
Now I realize I was just a child before the college years. But it depends only on your ambitions: you actually can remain being child even after retirement 
I think you can be mature for your age prior to college but still have room to mature further. I started college at 17 and was definitely a mature 17-year-old, but by the end of even my first year I had developed so much. Moving off campus into an apartment forced me to become mature enough to handle paying bills, buying groceries, cooking meals, etc. Those things don’t define maturity, but I don’t think that at 17 I could have handled making a healthy grocery list for under $20.
Of course it depends on the person, but I think through living on your own, being forced to manage your time and become responsible for yourself, and being exposed to a diverse group of peers with varying mindsets almost forces you to grow up and mature more than you ever had to in high school.
Depends on how one defines being mature. Not being immature doesn’t necessarily equate to being mature, and not “partying” in college doesn’t in-and-of-itself doesn’t make someone mature.
I was always comfortable and enjoyed spending time and talking with adults as a kid. I was also very independent and didn’t ask for a lot of advice or help. I was doing my own laundry and knew how to cook before college, went off to visit colleges (flying and driving) on my own, applied on my own, and moved myself in alone when the time came. All that seemed normal to me. I think my parents had long before decided that they’d stay out of my way unless I screwed up. But I also had a large social circle, was active in sports, clubs, went to games, and rarely missed party.
But like most kids, I was raised in somewhat of a bubble with kids from the same general area and with somewhat similar backgrounds. With college came exposure people from all walks of life, geographic areas, schools of thought, socio-economic backgrounds, races, cultures, and religions. Sharing a room was new to me, let alone learning to adapt to living with a complete stranger in the dorms, then into an apartment with 3 other guys who were all very different.
I see a lot of students here that talk about having a difficult time meeting others who think like they do or who like the same things. I was more interested in meeting and befriending people very different from myself, trying new things that interested them, inviting them try things that interested me, and sharing those experiences. My best friend in college was more inquisitive than I was. I used to joke that he was “Mr. 20 questions.” Sometimes he’d meet someone and ask them so many questions that it seemed like an interrogation 
but he was truly interested in learning about them, and people tend to take an interest in you when you take an interest in them.
To me, stepping outside your comfort zone and being open to listening and learning from all these new experiences, people, and ideas you are exposed to is where the growth and maturity comes in, and all that can help you immensely later in life, especially in the post-college working world.