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Best College Towns!!


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There is a new organized effort to promote Spartanburg as a college town. I realize most of you probably don't know that Spartanburg has any colleges, much less 6 higher learning institutions.

USC Upstate

Converse

Wofford

Spartanburg Methodist College

Spartanburg Technical College

Sherman College (only chiropractic college in SC)

http://www.collegetownsc.org/

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  • 4 weeks later...

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^^ besides Cornell (which is pretty big but not a "state school" or is it?) and a local jr. college is there any other schools in Ithaca, true great college towns only need one big University but the more they have helps!

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Ithaca College is there too.

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Tallahassee, Florida - one of the best college towns in the country - trees, rolling hills, game days ... ahhh miss it already

^^ really, Clemson?

I guess I am too old to judge College Towns anymore, (31), but is Clemson really a fun town?  I do lots of business in Clemson, (I was there today), and it just doesnt seem like much of a college town, except for a bunch of dumbass younger drivers.

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I am totally surprised that that the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area was not spoken about too much! You have three top colleges that call this area their home. UNC, Duke, and NCSU.

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Chapel Hill is a pretty disappointing college town-- especially for how much it costs to live there. The business district/activity area is small, basically one main street that has little spurts of momentum here and there. Cheap dining options SUCK (although there are some really good higher-priced restaurants). Extremely snooty and NIMBY-ish town population; they won't let anything get built that might benefit the university (like more housing!). No on-campus housing for grad students (not that most grad students would want it anyway). Most of the building stock around town is old and worn out, or it's all suburban and auto-dependent. Unless you can walk to campus, which means either living in garbage housing or paying through the nose for new in-town stuff, you're dependent on the slow, weak transit service because parking on or near campus is impossible. Basically, a hard place to live if you don't have much money.

But it's got a pretty cool crowd of people-- most live in Carrboro and the old Chapel Hill neighborhoods. It's where hip people around the Triangle all come to hang out.

Durham's college district by the Duke campus (Ninth Street) is even worse. Dukies don't really have a reputation for being hip (relative to UNC kids and the hipsters at the NCSU design school), but even my Duke friends would complain about how old Ninth St could get.

Now if you could put Hillsborough St, Ninth St, Chapel Hill/Carrboro and the Raleigh warehouse district together, it would be a wonderful, cool college town. I found what I would imagine to be a similar experience when I took a weekend trip to Athens.

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TALLAHASSEE is by far the best college town on this planet. In most situations, a college or university exists within a city...in the case of Tally, the city is built around the schools. You've got TCC, FAMU and of course the grand, Florida State University. Think about it...the sun always shines, the girls and the palm trees stay fresh all year round, the beer is always cheap and plentiful. Not to mention the entire region shuts down for football games. Bobby Bowden for mayor!

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Chapel Hill sucks? LOL. Dining options suck? even bigger LOL. There are plenty of GREAT GREAT and cheap eating establishments. Of course you have the standard, run of the mill places but there are many standouts- Lime/Basil, The Rat, Fuse, 411 West, etc. etc. And although chapel hill is somewhat car dependant (I want you to name just ONE small non-suburb city that isn't in this country) there are still great developments. Slow/weak transit? NO WAY. I take the buses every day, and have done so for years--chapel hill is way ahead of most cities. The buses are completely free and run everywhere in the town just about.

I'm going to stop right there, i mean you're entitled to an opinion--even if it's completely the opposite of my own experience.

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I have to chime in. I think that a great college town revolves around the college and a city or metro area that has a population of about 200,000 or more probably doesn't revolve around a college or colleges. Everyone has something that they feel makes a town a good college town, but I must say that you have to look at it from the standpoint of what would you want as a student. To that end, good looking girls are at the top of that list and I don't believe except for maybe some areas in California and Texas that there are better college towns than the ones in Florida. The girls are at the colleges in Florida are probably head and shoulders above what you'll normally see.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I echo the statements about Columbia--USC, Benedict, Allen, Columbia College, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Columbia International, Midlands Tech...as much of a college town as you can get.

Although this city is thought of more as a historical, coastal, and tourist city, Charleston, SC deserves at least honorable mention. Historic College of Charleston (founded in 1770, oldest in SC, 13th oldest in US) is located in the heart of the city much like USC in Columbia, and you also have Charleston Southern, The Citadel, Medical University of South Carolina, and Trident Tech.

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I actually think college towns are really annoying but based on location I'd say San Luis Obispo, CA is a great college town. Cal Poly SLO is a great public university, too.

Cambridge is a cool college town. But Harvard Square was really disappointing, seemed like an area of mostly chain stores and yuppie boutiques...more like Palo "Shallow" Alto (Stanford University's town).

Berkeley is my favorite overall but I'm biased :)

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Tier II (Population between 1 and 2.6 million)

Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, N.C.

Pittsburgh

Austin

Seattle

Nashville

New Orleans

Providence

Milwaukee

Columbus

Denver

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Aside from the fact that Tulane University has a big economic impact (largest private employer, large med school) on New Orleans, I never considered New Orleans to be much of a college city/town at all.

It has a lot of universities--Tulane, Loyola (my alma mater), Xavier, Dillard, Southern, Univ. of New Orleans, but with the exception of Tulane--and Loyola somewhat--they're all commuter schools. With the exception of a small strip area on Broadway and Maple Sts., Tulane students are pretty invisible. "Collge town" isn't just part of the city's identity.

New Orleans might be a fun place to be a student in, but it's more fun to live in.

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I think I read somewhere that Athens, GA was once ranked as the #2 college town in America.

Anyways...

My favorites of the ones I have been to:

1. Athens, GA

2. Boston

3. Atlanta

4. Madison

5. Chicago

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1. Athens

2. Auburn

3. Clemson

4. Knoxville

5. Atlanta

Athens was voted 1st I believe a few years back. Plus, it is always voted as one of the best music towns in the nation.

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