Dorms and car hands down. Save your money now while you can. Dorms will mean an easier commute and closer to on-campus activities, too. A car will be essential for work, etc. later and it will be a real blessing not to have a car payment. No matter where you live, you can hang out with your friends, but I wouldn't give up a car and savings just to live under their roof. Also, you may make new friends in the dorms.

They may not say it, but it's quite obvious that essentials (housing, grocery, utilities, insurance, health care, etc.) take up a larger percentage of the income of someone at the median than of someone in the top 10%. It's also quite obvious that if you are supporting 4 people vs. 1, essentials will take up a much larger share of your income. It seems to me a lot of these gurus assume everyone is childless and making 6 figures.

Moved from Seattle to Dallas...yeah, COL is way lower here in Texas. Both states have no income tax, so there is that, but...housing is the killer. Just settle for LESS house than you would buy in Texas. We bought too much house in Texas just because we could. We didn't need as much house as we bought.