The reason college students apply from their "home state" is that almost all are still considered dependents of their parents. Thus the state/district of legal residency does not change.
Even for "emancipated" students, it is nearly impossible to get residency changed in time for the MOC applications -- i.e., driver's license, voter registration, car registration. Also, most freshman college students don't own or rent property at/near their college b/c they're living in a dorm. Even if you could change everything, an MOC nominating committee generally isn't going to be super-excited about giving a nom to someone who has been in the state for a month and has zero intention in most cases of making that residency permanent. Not saying it's never happened, but if so it's very rare.
Some college kids come back for interviews but most do it via Skype.
