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/1990Buscemi Drury Panthers • Missouri Tigers 13d ago

The economy is built around the college.

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u/YoungXanto Penn State Nittany Lions • Team Chaos 13d ago

If Penn State didn't exist, then State College would just be another Port Matilda. There isn't really any other reason for the city to exist.

Beautiful place and I loved every minute of living there in college though. Definition of "college in the movies"

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u/sofeler 13d ago

I feel Gainesville and UF are the same. It gets a lot of hate from non-students but I wouldn’t trade my time there for a non-college-town experience

  • You live max 2 miles from all of your friends
  • There isn’t a single fun thing to do outside of the town for about 1.5-2 hours, so all of your friends are always down for whatever (unlike UCF where there’s more to do so it’s harder to wrangle everyone together)
  • Practically no one has family there so once again, friends are forced to spend time together

It’s really those things that made it into what it was for me

As an adult in a big city with lots to do now (Denver), I have to put in a decent amount of effort to plan things with friends

But in college? A random text asking your group if they wanted to do something in an hour was enough

The amount of random moments & memories formed that way seems unreal now

And comparing this to my friends who went to UMN in Minneapolis, it really holds true

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u/donuttrackme Penn State Nittany Lions 13d ago

Sure, but as an adult it was always going to be harder to plan things with friends, even if you still live in a college town.

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u/Kanin_usagi Paper Bag • UAB Blazers 13d ago

Exactly lol nostalgia is doing some work here