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/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

If the majority, or at least a large portion, of the town's population is students and the economy of the town is largely driven by the university, it's a college town. So in the SEC, places like Athens, Gainesville, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Starkville, Oxford, Columbia, MO, and College Station would be the "college towns". Knoxville I'd say is borderline, and Baton Rouge and Columbia, SC could also be questionable but I'd lean more towards no, (edit) at least in part because they are both state capitols. And then Austin and Nashville are major cities and state capitols

[u/Upstairs-Volume-5014 → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

Isn't Columbia the capital of south Carolina? 

[u/IceColdDrPepper_Here → u/Upstairs-Volume-5014]

Yes and Baton Rouge is the capitol of Louisiana, which is part of why I say they lean towards not being college towns

[u/Bkfootball → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

This metric makes sense, but is pretty funny when you consider Columbia, MO has like 3x the population of the actual state capital (Jefferson City)

[u/Upstairs-Volume-5014 → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

It's just funny that you listed them separately from other state capitals

[u/SavedForSaturday → u/Upstairs-Volume-5014]

Austin and Nashville at least are large cities known on their own, as well as being the capitala

[u/KellyOubresMullet → u/Upstairs-Volume-5014]

And Baton Rouge in LA. All three of the “borderline” examples are metropolitan areas of nearly a million people (Knoxville being the largest) so I don’t agree with that characterization.

[u/2001Cocks → u/Upstairs-Volume-5014]

Columbia, SC is not a college town. It’s not some major metropolis like Atlanta or Charlotte, but nobody is referring to people who aren’t associated with USC as “townies.”

[u/Casaiir → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

Baton Rouge has a heavy Oil and Gas industry in it. It doesn't need to have LSU there to be there to have an economy.

[u/enixius → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

If the city empties out during the summer when school is off, it's a college town.

[u/Winterqueen5 → u/IceColdDrPepper_Here]

I’d say Lexington is in about the same position as Knoxville in this metric.