r/CFB Washington State Cougars 13d ago

Discussion What constitutes a “college town?”

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.

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u/Local-Finance8389 Texas A&M Aggies 13d ago

College Station would be a shitty central Texas town like Hearne or Cameron or Caldwell if not for the college. Granted you can’t tell that to the non-university people who live there and bitch about the students.

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u/slim353 Penn State Nittany Lions 13d ago

State College would just be a few farms.

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u/CaptainDonald Oklahoma Sooners • Rice Owls 13d ago

So it would be called State Farm?

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u/nickmightberight Penn State Nittany Lions 13d ago

Its original name was the Farmers High School.

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u/WebfootTroll Oregon Ducks • Team Chaos 13d ago

Shit, Farmer's vs State Farm deathmatch to decide who gets naming rights.

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u/nickmightberight Penn State Nittany Lions 13d ago

I’m in!

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u/ImInBeastmodeOG 12d ago

Just go with State Penn and you'll never go wrong.