The stereotype of the East Coast kid wanting to pack up his stuff and ship himself off to California for college, just to get away from it all and declare some independence, is becoming more fantasy than fact. Nowadays, says this New York Times article, students opt to enroll in colleges close to home.

That's good news for some institutions that traditionally haven't drawn well from their own states. Connecticut and New Jersey always lead the pack in the percentage of students attending college elsewhere. The brain drain has slowed in Connecticut, as the article documents, with many more Nutmeggers choosing UConn and other public schools.

So why aren't kids straying anymore? Here's what one observer thinks:

"Kids are not as adventurous as I saw 15 years ago, when they were willing to pick a school in Iowa," said Ms. baker of Greenwich High School. "Although we have a number of students choosing schools in those areas, I think that students are a little bit more concerned about maintaining that close tie to family, being able to get home quickly. That could be reflective of the state of our society today, that students are a little bit more anxious. I don't know."I don't know either, but I wonder how parents feel about the weekend furloughs home.

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