Ranking Smaller College Towns

I recently revisited Bloomington, Indiana (home of Indiana University, my alma mater) and Charlottesville, VA (home of the University of Virginia). They got me thinking about college towns, so I pulled some data for various of them in this size class.  These are communities roughly in the 125,000-250,000 population range that are home to major flagship (or similar) universities.

I have 11 on my list. For this size class of community, I believe the best unit of analysis is the county. These are metro areas and can have outlying counties. But those counties are typically rural (as opposed to the urbanized suburban counties of major metros). In my view they skew more than illuminate the data. So I use county where feasible. Some data is only available at the metro level. And because Virginia’s cities are all independent cities, I combined Charlottesville with Albemarle County where possible.

With that, let’s dig in.

Population

Here’s a list of my college town counties sorted by population.

Rank	College Town County	2017
1	Washington County, AR (Fayetteville – University of Arkansas)	231,996
2	Brazos County, TX (College Station – Texas A&M)	222,830
3	Champaign County, IL (University of Illinois)	209,399
4	Tuscaloosa County, AL (University of Alabama)	207,811
5	Tippecanoe County, IN (West Lafayette – Purdue University)	190,587
6	Boone County, MO (Columbia – University of Missouri)	178,271
7	Centre County, PA (State College – Penn State University)	162,660
8	Charlottesville-Albemarle County, VA (University of Virginia)	155,721
9	Johnson County, IA (Iowa City – University of Iowa)	149,210
10	Monroe County, IN (Bloomington – Indiana University)	146,986
11	Clarke County, GA (Athens – University of Georgia)	127,064

Here’s how those places fared in terms of population growth since 2010.

Rank	College Town County	2010	2017	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Brazos County, TX	195,662	222,830	27,168	13.89%
2	Washington County, AR	203,970	231,996	28,026	13.74%
3	Johnson County, IA	131,293	149,210	17,917	13.65%
4	Tippecanoe County, IN	173,045	190,587	17,542	10.14%
5	Boone County, MO	163,168	178,271	15,103	9.26%
6	Charlottesville-Albemarle County, VA	142,703	155,721	13,018	9.12%
7	Clarke County, GA	117,481	127,064	9,583	8.16%
8	Tuscaloosa County, AL	194,993	207,811	12,818	6.57%
9	Monroe County, IN	138,511	146,986	8,475	6.12%
10	Centre County, PA	154,280	162,660	8,380	5.43%
11	Champaign County, IL	201,541	209,399	7,858	3.90%

Texas is killing it, of course. Fayetteville I don’t know much about, but it’s close to Bentonville (home of Wal-Mart), so may be drawing off that. Iowa City is growing at a Sunbelt rate, and we’ll see that it looks good on some other stats as well. Illinois is a shrinking state, and even a quality college town like Champaign is growing at a low rate.

Gross Domestic Product

Here are the college town MSAs sorted by real per capita GDP.

Rank	College Town Metros	2016
1	Iowa City, IA	51,303
2	State College, PA	49,309
3	Charlottesville, VA	48,418
4	Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO	45,627
5	Columbia, MO	44,391
6	Champaign-Urbana, IL	44,352
7	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	40,276
8	Tuscaloosa, AL	40,046
9	Athens-Clarke County, GA	36,850
10	Bloomington, IN	36,193
11	College Station-Bryan, TX	33,730

Again we see Iowa City doing great. Also State College. Champaign and West Lafayette, despite high quality STEM programs, aren’t especially impressive. Bloomington not looking so good.

Here is how real GDP per capita has changed since 2010.

Rank	College Town Metro	2010	2016	Total Change	Pct Change
1	State College, PA	42,112	49,309	7,197	17.09%
2	Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO	39,100	45,627	6,527	16.69%
3	Columbia, MO	41,782	44,391	2,609	6.24%
4	Charlottesville, VA	45,986	48,418	2,432	5.29%
5	Athens-Clarke County, GA	35,027	36,850	1,823	5.20%
6	College Station-Bryan, TX	33,207	33,730	523	1.57%
7	Champaign-Urbana, IL	43,834	44,352	518	1.18%
8	Iowa City, IA	50,745	51,303	558	1.10%
9	Tuscaloosa, AL	40,005	40,046	41	0.10%
10	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	40,766	40,276	-490	-1.20%
11	Bloomington, IN	39,335	36,193	-3,142	-7.99%

Yikes. Bloomington, which I take a special interest in since I went to school there, is dropping like a stone. That’s double-plus-ungood. West Lafayette also lost ground economically. This should be deeply concerning inside the Hoosier State.

Iowa City is not so strong here, but is starting off a high base. State College also started on a higher base but is killing it. Fayetteville is also looking good.

Jobs

My county level jobs data is out of date, so I used the metro series. Here’s the ranking by metro, which no surprise roughly follows population. The values are in thousands of jobs.

Rank	College Town Metro	2017
1	Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO	253.5
2	Charlottesville, VA	117.0
3	College Station-Bryan, TX	116.5
4	Champaign-Urbana, IL	110.2
5	Tuscaloosa, AL	107.6
6	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	102.9
7	Iowa City, IA	101.5
8	Columbia, MO	99.4
9	Athens-Clarke County, GA	96.8
10	State College, PA	78.0
11	Bloomington, IN	76.0

And here is growth since 2010.

Rank	College Town Metro	2010	2017	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO	200.3	253.5	53.2	26.56%
2	College Station-Bryan, TX	101.7	116.5	14.8	14.55%
3	Charlottesville, VA	102.9	117.0	14.1	13.70%
4	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	91.2	102.9	11.7	12.83%
5	Athens-Clarke County, GA	85.8	96.8	11.0	12.82%
6	Iowa City, IA	90.2	101.5	11.3	12.53%
7	Tuscaloosa, AL	96.5	107.6	11.1	11.50%
8	Columbia, MO	89.5	99.4	9.9	11.06%
9	State College, PA	74.4	78.0	3.6	4.84%
10	Champaign-Urbana, IL	107.6	110.2	2.6	2.42%
11	Bloomington, IN	74.4	76.0	1.6	2.15%

It’s another poor showing for Bloomington. Champaign is also not looking so hot. Fayetteville is rocking.

Incomes

Here are the college towns ranked by median household income. I used MSA here to grab Charlottesville.

Rank	College Town Metro	2016
1	Charlottesville, VA	62,523
2	State College, PA	60,266
3	Iowa City, IA	57,777
4	Columbia, MO	52,752
5	Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO	51,848
6	Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN	51,410
7	Champaign-Urbana, IL	50,564
8	Tuscaloosa, AL	46,086
9	Bloomington, IN	43,693
10	Athens-Clarke County, GA	43,165
11	College Station-Bryan, TX	42,233

My observation of Charlottesville was that it was a posh town. I’m not surprised to see it so high on the list. State College and Iowa City again doing well, but Bloomington again doing poorly. Again, the top tech oriented schools in Champaign and West Lafayette aren’t that impressive.

For the change, I’m switching to county and dropping C’ville off the list. (MSA data isn’t available for 2010 because of metro redefinitions. I could use per capita income but my database needs updated for that). Note that unlike GDP per capita, these numbers are not inflation adjusted. The percentage number in brackets is the percent of the US average.

Rank	College Town County	2010	2016	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Tippecanoe County, IN	37,983 (75.9%)	51,361 (89.1%)	13,378	35.22%
2	Centre County, PA	44,746 (89.4%)	60,266 (104.6%)	15,520	34.68%
3	Boone County, MO	41,006 (81.9%)	52,752 (91.6%)	11,746	28.64%
4	Monroe County, IN	36,392 (72.7%)	43,582 (75.6%)	7,190	19.76%
5	Washington County, AR	38,278 (76.5%)	45,679 (79.3%)	7,401	19.33%
6	Johnson County, IA	49,226 (98.4%)	58,064 (100.8%)	8,838	17.95%
7	Brazos County, TX	35,407 (70.7%)	41,559 (72.1%)	6,152	17.38%
8	Champaign County, IL	45,254 (90.4%)	50,335 (87.4%)	5,081	11.23%
9	Tuscaloosa County, AL	43,450 (86.8%)	47,787 (82.9%)	4,337	9.98%
10	Clarke County, GA	34,230 (68.4%)	34,999 (60.7%)	769	2.25%

Here West Lafayette shines. They had substantial growth and went from 76% to 89% of the US average. Pretty good. State College is again doing well. Athens not so hot.

These are the numbers, with a minimum of analysis. I’m sure that commenters will have much more to say.

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2018/04/20/ranking-smaller-college-towns/