I never had it that way. Lived with my parents through college then went with make money or no rent.

1) Colleges DO NOT filter out bad students. I know good and bad programmers who graduated out of my college.

2) The student community formed is also very important. Student communities really foster creativity and help students encourage each other. Online you are alone, isolated. This is a general problem of online human interaction, you are more alone and isolated than usual.