@CupCakeMuffins (your name is making me hungry… Lol…). It’s funny since I am just seeing what both my kids in college are going through. One is at a small LAC and the other is at a known Big Ten school. Both are happy as can be due to what I wrote and wouldn’t trade for the others experience. I “had” to go to community college my first year then worked my way through a 4 year college living at home. All while a lot of my friends went away to college. I had the “away at college” experience in medical school. Overall, I was happy with my overall college experience since that is what I knew. I did visit friends etc at other away 4 year colleges and their experience wasn’t that much different.
But saying that… If you have the resources, I would not want my child at home going to college . I see levels of independence and maturity in my kids that I think living on your own brings to the table. We joke with my son since he is so different in all the positive ways a parent would want and expect and he says “going away to college does that to you”.