I had planned to stay home and attend the local OSU branch in Mansfield both to save money and to help take care of the family. I honestly wanted to move away because I was tired of the town and frustrated with how things were going in my life, but I applied to OSU Mansfield anyway. My acceptance letter said something like "congrats you've been accepted to columbus"... I just went with it. After I worked my ass off to get my undergrad degree while having at least 1 (sometimes 2 or 3) part time job at all times, I worked for 5 months (had them keep me as intern status so that I could work flexible hours ~35/week) and decided I wanted a master's degree to bump up my pay grade. I originally decided to go to business school, had the appropriate test scores etc, they told me they were putting me on the wait list because I didn't have any "full time" work experience. So I'm thinking, I can either sit on a wait list to go to business school and PAY $42K to go over 2 years or I can apply to engineering school and GET PAID.... hmmm, hard decision . Anyway, looking back at it all, I'm glad that I left home when I was 18. I didn't move far away or put myself in a bad financial situation, I didn't leave my family completely, but I allowed myself to start growing - being independent and whatnot early. I think its a great idea to stay on campus your first year if you can afford it. You build a social network, start learning more about yourself than you do at home, I also think it makes a less distracted lifestyle available to study and learn what you're at college to learn.