Austin, Orlando And Ann Arbor Rated Best College Towns In Nation By WalletHub

WalletHub, the personal finance website released its 2022 ratings of the Best & Worst College Towns & Cities in America this week. The rankings were based on evaluations of more than 400 U.S. cities, divided into three categories:

• Large Cities: More than 300,000 people
• Midsize Cities: 125,000 to 300,000 people
• Small Cities: Fewer than 125,000 people

The Rankings

Austin, Texas topped the large city list, Here’s the rest of the top ten in that category:

• Tampa, FL
• Raleigh, NC
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Seattle, WA
• Atlanta, GA
• Miami, FL
• Columbus, OH
• Las Vegas, NV
• Cincinnati, OH

The midsize city top ten was headed by Orlando, Fl, followed by:

• Gainesville, FL
• Scottsdale, AZ
• Irvine, CA
• Tempe, AZ
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Reno, NV
• Madison, WI
• Boise, ID
• Charleston, SC

Ann Arbor, MI headed up the best small city rankings, followed by:

• Provo, UT
• Oxford, OH
• West Lafayette, IN
• Rexburg, ID
• College Station, TX
• Oren, UT
• Chapel Hill, NC
• Ithaca, NY
• Princeton, NJ

Methodology

WalletHub grouped 30 indicators into three categories to rank the 415 cities in its report. It limited its sample to cities that had a population of at least 7,500 college students. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the most favorable conditions for college students.

• Wallet Friendliness accounted for 25% of the overall ranking. It was measured by eight factors such as housing costs, adjusted cost of living for young people, the average cost of pizza & burgers, the cost of higher education, and student loan debt per person.
• Social Environment also had a 25% share of the final score. It included a total of 14 indictors that included such disparate measures as students per capita; share of single people; student gender balance; cafes, food trucks and breweries per capita; the presence of NCAA Division 1 athletics; city accessibility; crime rates; and the percentage of residents fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
• Academic & Economic Opportunities made up 50% of the ratings. It was assessed with eight indicators – quality of higher education, earning potential for college graduates, share of part-time jobs, median income of part-time workers, unemployment rate, entrepreneurial activity, and the annual change in the share of the population with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

While the rankings reflect a quantified methodology, the selection of the metrics involves subjective judgments about what matters most to college students. Is the present of Division 1 athletic teams an important determinant of the quality of life for the average college student. Will the number of breweries per capita be the tie-breaker for a student considering the University of Wisconsin vs. the University of Iowa? In the end, the utility of these rankings – just like most other college rankings – will depend on the personal priorities of individual students.