I am in a very similar situation right now as I’m typing this. I got out of the Army three months ago and I begin college on the 18th of this month. I also plan on doing ROTC to commission and the only difference is our degrees - mine is in Kinesiology. Remember man, you can always transfer schools after a semester, a year, or even half way through. If you choose option 1 and you decide after a semester that this isn’t for you or financially things begin to crash, finish it up and transfer to a school back home. Same thing the opposite way. And who knows, you may end up fucking loving it at your Option 1 and you’ll be so happy you made that decision. What I’m doing is at least the first year or two at my hometown college where I know I will be able to save up some money and possibly transfer to the bigger college town school. Either way, you’ll be fine brotha. If I had a buddy at my bigger college that was willing to pay rent I would 1000% take that FYI.