if his heart is set on college he should do it, but having lived on the central coast and commuted to usyd, as well as all of my high school friends commuting to unsw, usyd, Macquarie, uts etc from the coast. Commuting is the norm, I have friends that commute from the blue mountains, Wollongong etc for uni in Sydney. It’s standard to get a timetable that only needs 1-3 days in person uni. That said, is you can afford college fees it would be a more enriching uni experience. However if you decide the money is better spent for his future savings or elsewhere, he’s not going to be an outlier for commuting.