The annual College Destinations Index compiled by the American Institute for Economic Research has released its list of best college towns. No. 1 on the list among metro areas is San Francisco, followed by New York, Washington, and Boston. The index considers 222 metropolitan areas with student populations of 15,000 or more to find the 75 “best towns and cities” and ranks the areas based on 12 factors, such as cost of living and diversity. San Jose, Calif., topped the list of midsize college towns, and Boulder, Colo., ranked first among small college towns.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
20 Responses to The Best College Town? You Might Be Surprised
jffoster - September 9, 2010 at 7:48 am
San Francisco, New York, Washington, and Boston are not “college towns”. Baton Rough isn’t even a college town although it thinks it is and wants to be. College towns are towns like South Bend, Urbana-Champaign, Fayetteville, Auburn-Opelika, Ames, Iowa City, West Lafayette, and Middlebury.
jffoster - September 9, 2010 at 7:53 am
Sacre! C’est ‘Baton Rouge’, pas “Baton Rough”, mais ces sont de temps en temps egals.
kbockl - September 9, 2010 at 8:32 am
Touche!
cmsmw - September 9, 2010 at 8:42 am
jffoster: I seldom agree with you, but I love your contributions, especially today. Best wishes.
tbstoller - September 9, 2010 at 9:04 am
The AIER calls their list “The 75 Best Cities for College Students” and its criteria are focused on the wants and needs of students, not of the town or city as a whole. Your title and little paragraph really didn’t convey this at all.http://www.aier.org/aier/otherpublications/CDI.pdf
dycuga - September 9, 2010 at 9:04 am
link?
paceuniversity - September 9, 2010 at 9:49 am
And the best “college town” on the list was Ithaca, NY. Jeff knows this to be true since he went to school there.
11121641 - September 9, 2010 at 9:49 am
Too bad your writer did not read Blake Gumprecht’s The American Ciollege Town, and understand what that actually is. San Francisco is NOT a college town, but Berkeley is. Boston is NOT a college town, but Cambridge is. In any event even such college towns require ma and pa to be high-income earners for junior to lead the life of collegiate genteel-poverty ease. Ithca, NY is a college town. Arcata, CA is a college town. Northampton, MA is a college town. The US has hundreds of such real places. Please don’t succumb to “fair and accurate”(c) reporting any more, PLEASE?
hmlowry - September 9, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Obviously no one checked out Berrien Springs, Michigan for the small college town category.
jffoster - September 9, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Merci, Nu. 4, Cmsmw. And to you too.
lexalexander - September 9, 2010 at 1:28 pm
In a city of just 260,000 people, Greensboro, N.C., has more than 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students at UNC-Greensboro, N.C. A&T State University, Greensboro College, Guilford College, Bennett College, Guilford Technical Community College and the Elon University School of Law. Of those seven institutions, five and part of a sixth are within walking distance or a short hop from a vibrant downtown featuring a public park, world-class public library, athletic facilities, fine dining, nightclubs, museums, galleries, excellent professional theater and minor-league baseball.Y’all come and see us sometime, y’hear?Lex Alexander, Director of External Relationswww.greensborocollege.edu
ophe07 - September 9, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Why is Tallahassee not listed? I am not saying it should top the list but for it not to even appear seems wrong.
lost_angeleno - September 9, 2010 at 2:38 pm
#2: I’ve been to Baton Rouge. It really can be Rough if you don’t have Louisana plates, so not too far off.
tdr75 - September 10, 2010 at 10:28 am
Interesting attempt to quantify quality of life…that’s essentially what this is. Putting it into the context of “college towns” is simply window dressing.There are 3 major problems with this analysis:1) Lumping all “college towns” with under 250,000 people into one category creates a situation where probably 60% of colleges and universities are in the same category.2) They perform the analysis by Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) ONLY IF they have at least 15,000 college students. While I understand the convenience of using MSAs, analysis breaks down when you get to more rural areas (anyone notice how big Flagstaff appears on the map?). 3) Let me see…how many college towns in NY (for example) have less than 15,000 students? Geneva (Hobart & William Smith), Hamilton (Colgate), Alfred (Alfred), Cobleskill (SUNY Cobleskill), and the list could go on and on and on. None of these would even be considered in the analysis. Or worse, they would be lumped in with larger neighbors in the MSA. Geneva would be in either Rochester or Syracuse’s MSA more likely than not, for example.4) Define a college town. It’s harder than you think! :) I think the popular conception is a town the grew up around a particular institution (however romanticized this may be it’s the most commmon perception). This pamphlet is obviously looking at quality of student life from a distorted wide-angle lense. Useful at a macro level, but not much more.
11272784 - September 10, 2010 at 10:51 am
No place with more than 1.5 million residents is a “college town”. To me, a college town is one where the university is a dominant factor in the town’s identity. and darn few places of more than 500,000 residents deserve the name – with Austin TX and Columbus OH being notable exceptions. I would strike every town in their “Major Metro” and most towns in their “Mid-Size Metro” categories off the list. The meaningful list starts at 250,000 – which they rightfully call “College Towns”. The rest may be destinations (which is the term they use), but they aren’t college towns.
olmsted - September 10, 2010 at 11:29 am
Where do we write to have our town expunged from the competition? As it is, the fly fishing these days has gotten to where you might see 2-3 people when in the past it was pure seclusion, the lift lines at the Beav can run as deep as 20 people, and I hear tell the Tuesday nite road biking group has grown to where they sometimes split into 3 skill divisions.As Nu. 2 said, “Sacre!” Leave Logan out of it, please. Or, as locals in Rossland, BC used to tell me, “tell everyone, when they ask you how skiing is at Red, ‘it’s crowded, icy and flat’”. Yea, what they said…
dld310 - September 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Sorry opheo 07, but I attended FSU and I don’t even think Tallahassee is a “college town”. The campus of FAMU feels “more like it” – but Tallahassee being the state capital just makes it feel like a Political town. Now Athens, Ga….that’s a college town.
_perplexed_ - September 10, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Who is the “American Institute for Economic Research” and how do they stay in business publishing such idiocy?
mchag12 - September 10, 2010 at 1:23 pm
It is rather silly listing major cities as college towns. I would think much of it would depend on whether or not one liked cities, for example. Isn’t the American Institute for Economic Research in New York? I love New York, but a college town it ain’t, and saying it is makes the analysis rather provincial. What about Paris for Americans?
shekomeko3 - September 10, 2010 at 2:30 pm
No, AIER is in Great Barrington, MA.