+1 for community college suggestion. Much cheaper than taking core classes at a 4 year school. You'd be suprised at the quality of teachers, too -- I went to HCC for a couple years, and my psych professor there had earned her PhD at Yale and taught at Yale for several years prior to coming to HCC. She came to HCC because she was looking for a less hectic environment. At HCC, I could walk up and chat to any of my professors at almost any time, without an appointment, and they were happy to chat. Class sizes were around 30 people, too, even for the most generic gen-ed... so you get a lot more attention from the prof than you would in a larger school.
If you're set on a 4-year, my only experience is with UMass Amherst. It's a great school if you're not sure what you want to major in, since it's friggin gigantic and they offer everything under the sun. Professors are generally friendly, but overworked. It's hard to get one-on-one time with them, especially for the larger classes. You pretty much always go through a TA. One downside (or upside, depending) is the party atmosphere at UMass. It's not universal, but most of the dorms get pretty loud and filled with drunken revelry thursday through sunday. By the time I got there I was older than most of the students (23 y/o junior), so I had already gotten a lot of the partying out of my system and was focused more on learning than the social stuff... so it depends on where you're coming from, I guess.
Transportation around campus at UMass Amherst sucks. There are a couple on-campus buses, but they're agonizingly slow and never on time. Unless you want to take a 30 minute walk to get from one side of campus to the other, you'll need a bike. Just make sure the bike has a lock, because any bikes that aren't secured will be stolen in 10 secs.
The area around Amherst is fantastic, though, if you're looking for that classic, liberal, new england experience. There are lots of other colleges, movie theaters, lots of small organic farms, tons of outdoorsy stuff to do, but you're also just a couple minutes from grocery stores and movie theaters. Northampton, just next door, is full of "indie", locally owned shops (e.g., a store that just sells stuff related to tibet). Lots of artists in the area. Northampton has an independent movie theater too, and lots of indie bars/clubs with a big variety of venues for small and large music acts. Amherst is right along a highway, so you've got easy access to areas beyond the local colleges, and there's fairly reliable bus service between Amherst and Northampton... but you still really need a car to get anywhere.
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