My daughter's freshmen dorm roommate should have stayed home. She spent much of her time pining for her boyfriend at home, rarely doing anything outside of class. She got pregnant by the boyfriend and now is dropped out. Kind of a bummer really, she is an under-represented minority who had a full-ride for Chemical Engineering.

Overspending to make a big commitment to something in the hopes that leads to success is generally, on average, terrible advice, in my opinion, even if you think there's some example of it working for somebody at some time.