“But online college .. .might protect from wild parties and bad ideas”.
Sorry to break the bad news, but your fantasies about “wild parties” are a bit exaggerated. Millions of young men and women have managed to get through 4 years of college and graduate without ever having experienced the kind of crazy stuff that shows up in the evening news occasionally and in those “Spring Break” movies. Between keeping ups with their courses and working to pay tuition in many cases, there really is little, if any time for “partying”.
As to being exposed to “bad ideas”, I would respectfully suggest that part of the college experience for ALL students should be the ability to evaluate a broad spectrum of beliefs and ideas and learn how to make decisions for oneself as to the validity of competing positions. In-person learning provides considerably more opportunity to discuss and debate ideas with other students than a sidebar “chat” with other students on a zoom call.