I heard that too when I told people that I was going to a secular college. I definitely hear where they are coming from, but I do not agree with them completely. It is a public school in the sense that it is a school that is open to the public… meaning, you will get a multitude of different people and the administration is not necessarily frum…
The difference lies in the fact that the students in a secular college are of an age where they are able to make their own decisions. As a college student, you choose the classes you attend, and generally treated as an adult. In a public school, the students are minors and do not have the option of choosing classes and are not able to make their own decisions…
I am working with teenagers that are struggling with decisions on whether or not to attend yeshiva for high school… and I am very clear when I tell them… the nisyonos of a public school are k’mat impossible to pass on your own… The taivos and peer pressure are very real… I would not say it to the same degree about college… The nisyonos are there, but you are at a different stage in life and so are the rest of the students…
Hatzlocha