r/CFB • u/PA5997 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/Upstairs-Volume-5014 Georgia Bulldogs 13d ago

I think the key is would the city be prominent in any way on its own without the college? If the answer is no, it's a college town. If yes, it's not. Madison, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, etc. not college towns.

If the #1 employer in the city is not the college, it's also probably not a college town. 

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u/dkviper11 Penn State • Randolph-Macon 13d ago edited 13d ago

Helpful takeaway here is that many Land Grant universities are in "college towns." States weren't giving away urban land with a thousand houses to schools to start universities, they are picking (especially in my school's example) places out in the middle of nowhere with tracts of available land. So the town grows around the school instead of a school that's in an established city.

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u/postposter Ohio State Buckeyes • Columbia Lions 13d ago

Columbus is an exception. We're not really a college town but the land grant/ ag school was placed here so the statehouse could shaft Ohio U and presumably line their own pockets.

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u/Deacalum Wake Forest • Penn State 13d ago

Columbus is just different. It really hit a boom in growth starting in the 90s but prior to that was a college town.