Don't pay 50 grand to spend a year abroad. Do whatever degree you decide to do as fast as humanly possible and then either start your working life, go to grad school, be a bum for a year, or volunteer someplace.

Also, all of those people talking to you about social skills and college, ignore them. Spending three or four years getting older, making mistakes and doing stuff will make your social skills better. Deliberately making your social skills better works much, much faster and can be done anytime, though I must admit college is an easy time to do it.