The 50 Best College Towns In America

There are a lot of things that have to click to make a truly great college town. Whether it’s feeling the palpable vibe of an alma mater, having tons to do, or the fact that your college town is a great place to stay after you’ve graduated, we’ve worked to provide you with a quality list of the best college towns in the nation.

What we considered:

• Livability
• Student-to-resident ratio
• Cultural Offerings
• School Presence
• Large Employers

The towns at the top of our list have all of the above, while towns featuring only a handful of our criteria are ranked lower. As an example, 50th ranked Tacoma has high livability and large employer scores, it lacks somewhat in the other three, particularly in student-to-resident ratio and school presence. We recognize that everyone values different things in their college towns, but in an effort to establish diversity of views in the ranking of college towns, we have decided on the above criteria as a valuable way to highlight the towns that truly are a great part of our college experience, before, during, and after school