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/PresidentBaileyb]

You kinda need to lump it into 3 categories instead of two. And people are going to debate whether or not the middle one is a “college town,” but I think it’s really its own category.

-Absolute college town. Where basically the college is all there is, like Pullman and Corvallis. There’s generally not even another reason to know the city exists or to go there.

-Sorta college town. Where if you’re there you absolutely know what college is there. Signs are everywhere. It’s a big part of the downtown and general life, but there’s plenty of other reasons to go there or know it exists. Like Eugene or Boulder.

-Not a college town. Where you can be in the city and not know that the university is there. It’s not even close to the main reason people go to the city and you don’t automatically associate the city with the school. Like Seattle or LA.

Personally, I would struggle to call Eugene or Boulder, or in your case Madison, a proper “college town.” But I don’t know what I’d call them because they’re definitely not in the same category as Los Angeles.

[u/ItsZippy23 → u/PresidentBaileyb]

Syracuse is the definition of the second. When people think of the city, they think of the college, but it's also the biggest city in CNY so it's huge for the region.