At age 18, about half of Americans escape parental oversight and spend 4 years on a beautiful campus (or cool city) totally free from the tyrannies of the lower half, alongside their smart, beautiful peers in the peak of youth, all funded by long-term subsidized loans. Edenic.
The urbanist-pleasing argument trope that people miss college because it’s the only time they’ll live in a walkable community is obviously quite overrated but there is an real element of it where universities have the best managed public realm of any place in this country