Anyone who’s been on CC long enough will have seen posts in the college life forum from kids who go home every weekend and can’t make any friends. No surprise there. All the fun stuff happens at the weekends. People aren’t going to invest a lot of energy in becoming friends with a kid who is never around for the fun times.
It seems clear that living near home while going to college works best when parents and students have clear boundaries.
I was a commuter for all of college. I lived at home, worked a lot, and pretty much did my own thing. I viewed it as “my parent’s house” and probably overstayed my welcome, haha, because it took me six years to finish college. My whole social life was centered around friends at work. For me, going to college in my home town was the only option I considered. As I mentioned in another thread, going away to college was something kids did on the East Coast, not in my suburban California town.