I'm not so sure. I went to uni in a different state, 1000 miles from home. I was also one of those marginal students (low income, poor schools, poor neighborhood, single parent, etc). Freshman year, moving to a new state made me a bit monastic. While my new friends, who were in state, were going home, constantly hanging out with friends from high school I would spend my weekends studying, try new interesting activities, listen to music, etc.

Being so far from family just made me more self-reliant and resourceful. Example, my roommate would take a car load of laundry home every month because he didn't know how to wash his clothes and could not be bothered to figure it out.

While being self reliant prepared me for life it did not help with the studies. It took me a few years and a few failed courses before I really learned how to study. Not at the grade school level but at the university level. But that was not because of the distance to the school. Being first in my family I had no one to lean on. Now my siblings are doing much better because I was the first, took all the arrows to the chest and mentored them over the stumbling blocks I encountered when transitioning to university.