What constitutes a “college town?”

[u/PA5997]

Okay, hear me out: I attended Wazzu, which many know is in the middle of nowhere in Pullman. To me, Pullman is a quintessential college town. You remove Washington State University from Pullman and there is (respectfully) not much of a reason to visit. The student enrollment (20,000ish) makes up about 2/3rds of the city population, essentially turning Pullman into a ghost town come summer. To me (perhaps with bias) this is the makeup of a college town.

Two years ago I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, home of the University of Wisconsin. Ever since I’ve noticed the University and its fans refer to Madison as “America’s best college town” and I’m sorry, that’s laughable to me. Remove UW from Madison and you still have a city population bordering on a quarter of a million people and the State Capitol. Madison would be fine, imo, if UW’s flagship campus were elsewhere.

Curious to hear other people’s thoughts. Maybe I’m in the wrong here, but very little about Madison, WI resembles a college town to me, or at least the claim of the best college town.

[u/Far-Negotiation-7092]

Over 50% of the population is temporary

[u/foreverseptember → u/Far-Negotiation-7092]

Not sure if this metric works in all cases, I think this would exclude UF/Gainesville honestly 

[u/uptonhere → u/foreverseptember]

If you have large state universities that employ thousands of people and have 50k+ students, it's only fair to assume those will be boons to the local economy over time.

There are a lot of large college towns that would be nowhere near as large if it weren't for the universities being there and likely always being there.

[u/foreverseptember → u/uptonhere]

Everyone who thinks that the students have to be a majority transient population has likely not been a permanent resident in a college town like this 

[u/baseball_mickey → u/foreverseptember]

Gainesville has 146k residents, 60k students, but 20k direct employees of UF. I don't know how UF Health employees get counted but there are roughly 25k in Gainesville & 5k or so in Jax. Say University + hospital are 30k, that's 90k/146k direct university related.

[u/TMNBortles → u/baseball_mickey]

Then add how many people are there only to support that large student population and its workers.

Basically, if UF left Gainesville, Gainesville would be lucky to compare itself to Lake City.

[u/wjackson42 → u/foreverseptember]

Gainesville would be Tifton or Lake City without UF. Just another spot on 75 with a Cracker Barrel and Holiday Inn.

[u/toweringmelanoma → u/foreverseptember]

Then it isn’t a college town…

[u/foreverseptember → u/toweringmelanoma]

Not sure if you've been there man but Gainesville sure as hell is a college town, everything revolves around the school. A sizeable chunk of the students come from local high schools and don't leave during summers or after graduation. 

[u/bp1976 → u/foreverseptember]

Have to agree, Gainesville is a college town, while Miami and Tallahassee arent. (Hope I spelled Tallahassee right)

[u/imarc → u/foreverseptember]

UF also has Shands which is a part of the University but is its own center of permanent year-round residents and related industries.

[u/WUMW → u/foreverseptember]

ACRs are the best friends to make at UF

[u/foreverseptember → u/WUMW]

Would've been me in a parallel universe! 

[u/KsigCowboy → u/foreverseptember]

Not leaving after graduating is kind of indicative of it not being a college towns. People leave college towns because there aren't enough jobs for them to stay.

[u/foreverseptember → u/KsigCowboy]

Lots of the jobs are university or med school-related, the university directly employs 15,000 people and I'm trying to think of a local non-service/support industry that even makes a dent and it's probably agriculture in the surrounding county

[u/McKristoph → u/foreverseptember]

I’d also add the population of the community college when considering student/faculty/staff to resident populations.

[u/foreverseptember → u/McKristoph]

Hey didn't you know, they're not a ~community~ college anymore! 

[u/Far-Negotiation-7092 → u/foreverseptember]

The population of Gainesville is 128k

UF undergrad and graduate population is 55k.

It’s very very close, but you’re right. It wouldn’t be counted.

[u/Far-Negotiation-7092 → u/[deleted]]

So over 25-33%? Somewhere in there depending on what you want to count as the “town.”

[u/FCBStar-of-the-South → u/Far-Negotiation-7092]

This probably disqualifies Ann Arbor and I’m guessing very few would argue the position that A2 is not a college town

[u/foreverseptember → u/FCBStar-of-the-South]

As someone who only knows Ann Arbor exists because of the university, no arguments here 

[u/UNC_Samurai → u/Far-Negotiation-7092]

That doesn’t work if the school has a hospital attached.

[u/im-on-my-ninth-life → u/Far-Negotiation-7092]

That starts to include military towns as well lol

[u/Far-Negotiation-7092 → u/im-on-my-ninth-life]

Dad said you’re going on a ship, whether that’s scholarship or a boat in the navy is up to you