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> People generally move or commute to cities for higher education I'm not sure that's true. My impression is that most universities are in small towns. In the

> People generally move or commute to cities for higher education I'm not sure that's true. My impression is that most universities are in small towns. In the U.S., that describes many large state universities. I would guess that the cost of land in cities is a big reason. EDIT: With many large universities enrolling tens of thousands of students, plus employing faculty and staff and supporting all the third parties (from caterers to construction to police to temp agencies), their towns can't be too tiny.

askmeaqwestion 9y ago
If your definition of small town is relative to large urban hubs, sure. But, I wouldn't say many large state universities are in truly rural locations. EDIT: To clarify, of course there are universities in rural areas. But I wouldn't generalize that a significant amount are in areas with a couple thousand residents, this is simply not the case. These are the kids being left behind, those whose entire lives revolve around small areas. They're much harder to pull away to the "big city", and with good reason.
hermitdev 9y ago
It depends on where you are. I think your impression that most universities are in small towns is an apt description of midwestern universities (i.e. states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, etc). It doesn't hold for either the west or east coast, really. See U of Washington, U of Oregon, Oregon State, state schools of California, state schools of New York, etc, etc. Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. I grew up in rural Montana and wanted to study Electrical & Computer Engineering. I didn't really have a choice to stay in state (and get my degrees from a quality program). I could have studied at University of Montana, but that would have left me with a degree that, for what I wanted to do, would have been worthless. Sure, I could have made the 30-45 minute commute and gotten a cheap degree, but the result would have been a degree I didn't want. For an in-state state-school engineering degree, I'd have had to at a minimum gone to Montana State University (5+ hours from my parents' house). MSU doesn't have much of a EE/CPE department, but does have some good engineering programs (like chemical). I had to go to Chicago to find the program I wanted.
- arcticfox 9y ago
  > U of Oregon, Oregon State ... Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. What? I'm from Oregon... Eugene (UO) is population 166k, Corvallis (OSU) is 57k. Portland is like 3x bigger than both combined. And UW fits your point, but WSU is so far in the middle of nowhere that it's practically in Idaho.
  - hermitdev 9y ago
    Eugene would be the largest city in Montana, ND, SD or Wyoming, for example. What constitutes a "large" city is largely shaped by perspective. Corvallis would likewise be one of the larger cities in most "fly-over" states.
    - lugg 9y ago
      For clarification I just assumed that if you could support a modern University attendence you by definition had a population density that far exceeds what I would call rural. (Next house miles away) In other words, small town or city, neither is what I would describe as "rural". What the study defines as rural would probably cover a lot of small towns I suspect so who really knows.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Many universities are located in the middle of nowhere and students "go there" to study, WSU was already mentioned, but Purdue, UIUC, Cornell, ...their are many University towns that don't have many (if any) local students at all.
    - xyhopguy 9y ago
      Interestingly enough, I grew up in a small town outside Corvallis. Moving to a city as (relatively) big as Corvallis was pretty weird.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  UW has a pretty good CS program, and is less than 8 hours away from Missoula (if you lived close to there). UW unfortunately does not offer in state tuition to border states (unless from certain native american tribes).
TheCoelacanth 9y ago
There are a lot of towns in the US that basically exist just to support a university. However, there are also tons of universities in large cities too. Google "universities in _" for almost any big city and you will get a list that goes on for multiple screens. Many of them are tiny, but usually at least a few will be large universities. E.g. New York City has 110 universities and colleges with roughly 600k students[1]. Boston has 35 with 150k students[2]. DC has 20 with about 85k students[3]. Pittsburgh has over 150k students[4], etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_York_City [2] http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/3488e768-1dd4-4446-a557-3892bb0445c6/ http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/3488e768-1dd4-4446-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit.... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Pittsburgh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...

askmeaqwestion 9y ago

If your definition of small town is relative to large urban hubs, sure. But, I wouldn't say many large state universities are in truly rural locations. EDIT: To clarify, of course there are universities in rural areas. But I wouldn't generalize that a significant amount are in areas with a couple thousand residents, this is simply not the case. These are the kids being left behind, those whose entire lives revolve around small areas. They're much harder to pull away to the "big city", and with good reason.

hermitdev 9y ago

It depends on where you are. I think your impression that most universities are in small towns is an apt description of midwestern universities (i.e. states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, etc). It doesn't hold for either the west or east coast, really. See U of Washington, U of Oregon, Oregon State, state schools of California, state schools of New York, etc, etc. Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. I grew up in rural Montana and wanted to study Electrical & Computer Engineering. I didn't really have a choice to stay in state (and get my degrees from a quality program). I could have studied at University of Montana, but that would have left me with a degree that, for what I wanted to do, would have been worthless. Sure, I could have made the 30-45 minute commute and gotten a cheap degree, but the result would have been a degree I didn't want. For an in-state state-school engineering degree, I'd have had to at a minimum gone to Montana State University (5+ hours from my parents' house). MSU doesn't have much of a EE/CPE department, but does have some good engineering programs (like chemical). I had to go to Chicago to find the program I wanted.

arcticfox 9y ago
> U of Oregon, Oregon State ... Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. What? I'm from Oregon... Eugene (UO) is population 166k, Corvallis (OSU) is 57k. Portland is like 3x bigger than both combined. And UW fits your point, but WSU is so far in the middle of nowhere that it's practically in Idaho.
- hermitdev 9y ago
  Eugene would be the largest city in Montana, ND, SD or Wyoming, for example. What constitutes a "large" city is largely shaped by perspective. Corvallis would likewise be one of the larger cities in most "fly-over" states.
  - lugg 9y ago
    For clarification I just assumed that if you could support a modern University attendence you by definition had a population density that far exceeds what I would call rural. (Next house miles away) In other words, small town or city, neither is what I would describe as "rural". What the study defines as rural would probably cover a lot of small towns I suspect so who really knows.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Many universities are located in the middle of nowhere and students "go there" to study, WSU was already mentioned, but Purdue, UIUC, Cornell, ...their are many University towns that don't have many (if any) local students at all.
  - xyhopguy 9y ago
    Interestingly enough, I grew up in a small town outside Corvallis. Moving to a city as (relatively) big as Corvallis was pretty weird.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
UW has a pretty good CS program, and is less than 8 hours away from Missoula (if you lived close to there). UW unfortunately does not offer in state tuition to border states (unless from certain native american tribes).

TheCoelacanth 9y ago

There are a lot of towns in the US that basically exist just to support a university. However, there are also tons of universities in large cities too. Google "universities in _" for almost any big city and you will get a list that goes on for multiple screens. Many of them are tiny, but usually at least a few will be large universities. E.g. New York City has 110 universities and colleges with roughly 600k students[1]. Boston has 35 with 150k students[2]. DC has 20 with about 85k students[3]. Pittsburgh has over 150k students[4], etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_York_City [2] http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/3488e768-1dd4-4446-a557-3892bb0445c6/ http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/3488e768-1dd4-4446-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit.... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Pittsburgh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...