With application season in full gear and college living costs reaching $26,200 per student for nine to 12 months, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst College Towns & Cities in America, as well as accompanying videos, as a follow-up on its College & University Rankings.
To help college-bound high school seniors determine their future home for the next several years, WalletHub compared more than 400 U.S. cities – also grouped by city size – based on 30 key indicators of academic, social and economic growth potential. The data set ranges from cost of living to quality of higher education to crime rate.
| Best Large College Cities* | Best Midsize College Cities* | Best Small College Cities* | |||||
| 1 | Austin, TX | 1 | Orlando, FL | 1 | Ann Arbor, MI | ||
| 2 | Tampa, FL | 2 | Scottsdale, AZ | 2 | Provo, UT | ||
| 3 | Las Vegas, NV | 3 | Gainesville, FL | 3 | Rexburg, ID | ||
| 4 | Seattle, WA | 4 | Salt Lake City, UT | 4 | Stevens Point, WI | ||
| 5 | Los Angeles, CA | 5 | Madison, WI | 5 | West Lafayette, IN | ||
| 6 | Atlanta, GA | 6 | Vancouver, WA | 6 | Storrs, CT | ||
| 7 | Miami, FL | 7 | Irvine, CA | 7 | Orem, UT | ||
| 8 | San Diego, CA | 8 | Reno, NV | 8 | College Station, TX | ||
| 9 | Columbus, OH | 9 | Henderson, NV | 9 | Starkville, MS | ||
| 10 | St. Louis, MO | 10 | Tempe, AZ | 10 | Charlottesville, VA | ||
*For simplicity, we used the term “Cities” to refer to both cities and towns.
Best vs. Worst
- Albany, Georgia, has the lowest cost of a two-bedroom apartment rental, $682 per month, which is 4.1 times lower than in San Francisco and Daly City, California, the cities with the highest at $2,809 per month.
- Edinburg, Texas, has the lowest cost-of-living index for young people, 77.18, which is 2.9 times lower than in Stanford, California, the city with the highest at 221.91.
- Whitewater, Wisconsin, has the lowest cost of higher education, $17,804 per year, which is 4.1 times lower than in Evanston, Illinois, the city with the highest at $72,980 per year.
- Stony Brook University, New York, is among the cities with the most enrolled students (per 1,000 residents), 947, which is 22.5 times more than in Cape Coral, Florida, the city with the fewest at 42.
To view the full report and your city’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-college-cities-and-towns-in-america/8974/
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