His parents could easily have an education fund that effectively has to be spent on higher education expenses, so why not go someplace far more interesting than the nearest directional U if the money is there?

And the actual cost of attendance and total debt at a lot of the top tier private schools (and well endowed wannabe private schools) is often far less than the debt load the public universities. Want one of the lowest student loan burdens on graduation outside of the service academies and a few oddball places like Berea of Cooper Union? The typical Princeton grad has about a quarter of the student loan debt of the typical state university grad.

And if you're willing to go off the beaten path a little bit, semesters abroad can be pretty reasonable. My sister spent a year at university in Costa Rica for less than half of what it would have cost our family for her to spend junior year at her US university.