Hi, bandinterwebs!
I'm currently at Purdue and I'm afraid you might be out of luck. I'm not an Indiana native but as far as I know there really aren't any towns bigger than Lafayette/West Lafayette within 20-30 minutes driving distance. The good news is that it is pretty easy to get to IND and Chicago airports from West Lafayette; IND is about an hour by car and O'Hare is about 2.5 hours. There are also several companies offering reasonably-priced shuttle services; I fly out of IND pretty frequently and the shuttle from campus to the airport is 50 bucks round trip (they pick you up from campus and you don't have to worry about parking, so it's a win-win).
You would probably get less of a college town vibe by living across the river in Lafayette, where there is also more to do than there is around campus. It's not a major city by any stretch of the imagination but at least there are some restaurants, bars, cultural events, etc.
Let me know if you have any other questions I might be able to answer!
