Why College Towns Are Disappearing
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- čas přidán 22. 06. 2024
- The past decade or so hasn't been kind to American Universities or the countless college towns across the United States that depend on them.
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I really appricate your time in watching my video on why college towns are disappearing, but I also appreciate your support in following Something Different Films for nearly two years now.
Short version: Schools got too expensive and overused.
So now, less people are going, and they don't want to pay so much. A natural correction to a market that is overgrown and overpriced.
There are going to be some lean years for the lower ranked schools until enough close so the numbers balance out again.
Sure thing Milton Friedman, now what about the people who live in the communities where colleges are going away permanently as a result of this contraction.
I have been to Lawrence KS and Chapel Hill NC and Ann Arbor MI in the past year. Those big-time college towns are not just surviving but thriving. They are all becoming retirement destinations for alumni who graduated 45 years before and now want to settle down to live out their golden years in places with good medical centers, interesting culture and food scenes, and sports to cheer for.
Furthermore, tons of federal money is pumped into the amenities and infrastructure within campus and around the top college towns. IMO, it's some of the best real estate that currently exists in the USA.
ann arbor is one of the nicest towns in michigan. it's expensive.
To be fair, Ann Arbor is close to Detroit, and Chapel Hill is in the heart of Research Triangle.
When I think of college towns, I think of Balcksburg, VA, or Strarkville, MS, places not really near a big city. Those places don’t have the job prospects
@WoodyJ98 what about Lawrence, KS?
@@RoyceBenning That's about as close to Kansas City as Ann Arbor is to Detroit. It's a 40 min drive to the KC airport.
as a current college student i prefer having access to jobs. its much easier in somewhere like louisville or pittsburgh than somewhere like clarion or moorehead
I just graduated a few years ago and I’ll give my perspective on this and that’s that it doesn’t matter. And yes I use my degree.
The issue I see is that people move to these big city colleges wrack up a ton of debt on living expenses and then struggle for years to pay it off. In contrast I went to a schools in middle of nowhere and my debts were low, got a job and now I can live life.
I live in a college town. This is what i have noticed in the past five years:
Housing is astronomical. No one can afford yo live here except college students (many crammed into an off campus converted house) and older retired folks.
Therefore, there has become a few things that have evolved:
1. Self segregation between the young and old.
2. Young families can't afford to live here.
3. Less school aged children mean shrinking schools and neighborhood life.
I have concluded we no longer live in a college town, but a retirement community that happens to host a university.
I was a faculty member at one of the universities that merged with clarion. It was a mess and I left as soon as they announced it. But, I can attest, these towns are barren and there is nothing to do at them. Students, if they have the option in western Pennsylvania might as well go to places like Pitt, Penn State, or IUP.
Whoever made the map you're showing apparently thinks the US has only 49 states, and one of them is called Dakota.
Canada has a funny name in French in one shot too
Tbh there shouldn’t be 2 Dakotas
@@michaelscott358 Agree just merge the Dakotas and make DC a state, then it'll still be 50 states.
I grew up near Princeton, NJ, and could never believe it's a college town. My friend goes there and flat out has told me he can't go into town to do anything because even a basic lunch costs $20. Personally, I've always joked that Princeton is the only college town that has a Rolex store right across the street from the main campus gate-look it up, it's true.
I go to school in Amherst, MA (my school is actually in the stock footage from 6:07 - 6:19!) and we're much more normal in that sense, though rents here are through the roof due to overenrollment in the local colleges. UMass and Amherst College, at the very least, are thriving, and there's constant new construction and restaurants everywhere, even though we're in the middle of nowhere Western Massachusetts. It's such a striking difference.
Clarion has several branch campuses. It also has an extensive distance learning division; I have a graduate degree from Clarion by distance learning.
Good. An entire generation+ of 18-year-olds was fed the lie that a 4-year college degree (or even a master’s!) was essential for survival and thus worth as much as the mortgage on a house. It was never either of these things. It is useful if you are truly determined to work and talented in the fields of medicine, lawyering, or education, but there are also plenty of degrees you can get much quicker and cheaper that will give you a foothold in these areas, and many others, to boot! 👍
My son graduated from a small, religious college in a rural area of the South. That school is growing quite nicely.
My son graduated from a small, religious, rural, Southern college. That school is growing. The number of students attending goes up every year.
Sane here in Ohio. Cedarville University is busting st the seams eith a continuous wave of endowments and constructions while Urbana U diversity struggled, was bought put by Franklin University and closed. Conservatives have pushed the narrative of the uselessness of liberal arts colleges and touted faith-based colleges. Even our historic Antioch University, alma mater to Ms. Corretta Scott King and Rod Serling fell victim to declining enrollment and closed for four years. New endowments were set-up and the university opened as a smaller version of itself. Enrollment has been steadily increasing.
Bob Jones University?
@@raylopez99 No.
@@JayYoung-ro3vuvery concerning for the continued theocratization of the United States
@@aidanwotherspoon905Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Catholics are better than Antifa and BLM.
When I started my undergraduate studies, I spent two years at SUNY Stony Brook. Stony Brook, Suffolk Co. is basically a college town, but I don’t think that it specifically will be threatened by the dynamics of the schools discussed in this video. It could happen at some point in the future though…
People aren’t getting married and they are not having children so this will have further impact
The other day I was reading a news article about how America doesn’t have enough STEM students and therefore we need to incentivize foreign students to fill these slots. All I could think about is how all of this could be fixed by making school affordable.
It's kinda weird calling Fairfield AL a small college town. It's a suburb. Some of the entrances to Miles are pointed more towards Birmingham a block away than to Fairfield.
Will there be a market correction for overpriced universities?
such a fascinating topic that's universal. i think of college towns as part of a bigger picture and if that bigger picture begins to crumble then everything around it does too. economically, times are tough and people want to save so they cut back which seems to include going to school. i do think politics play a role too, but probably more anecdotal because of how certain aspects like technology are shaping their environment and how they develop from that.
The big thing is that population collapse is finally hitting the colleges.
Our town has a university and a community college. But that isn't our economic base. We have a steel mill. We have two hospitals. We have 3 Walmarts.
I have lived in two college towns as a non-student, and it sucked. Both were home to major universities, and so entwined were the local governments, the schools and the economies that locals were a tertiary consideration, and had to subsume themselves to the whims of the student population.
I went to seek some knowledge at Southwest community college. I dropped out after a semester and a half though since I couldn't pass remedial math
A whole generation being told they had to goto college is certainly part of this drop in interest
What is that map at 2:12?
Seems like a lot of colleges are just online now, definitely noticed this
WSU should take notes from their neighbors over in Idaho. Their enrollment has gone up despite the slaughter of those 4 students that made national headlines.
The US map shown at 2:11 and elsewhere is fascinating. How many errors and anomalies can you find? signed, College Graduate
It's just a historic map, last time I choose a map based just on how unique I think it looks. I should have realized something was off when I saw that it had just one Dakota. As there was never a single Dakota state, North and South were admitted at the same time.
Did I hear that right? 15 million pursuing a bachelorette😂
Same as Law Schools.
20 grand ?
No way
What is a college “bachelorette?” Is this intentionally bad for views? Engagement? Here I am commenting, so I guess I fell for it
Why don't they take in more international students when enrollment of American students is shrinking? International students pay all of their tuition themselves and if they could stay in America after the end of their education they will be skilled and highly skilled immigrants.
They take as many internationals who can afford it as they possibly can. If your parents can pay 70k dollars a year then you have to be an idiot to not get accepted. I worked in admissions at a major USA university.
I’ll assume it’s because international students often do not 1. Want to go to the school or 2. Do not know of the schools existence.
Many of the bigger schools are doing that. The U of Washington was already doing that back when I went in the late 1980s early 1990s. I am not sure how supportive these small schools could be for those types of students due to the lack of infrastructure and even cultural differences in some places.
@@literatinyc Dear friend, This is not true because talented international students all know American schools very well and all wish to study there
The problem is in the immigration system of USA which does not allow them to easily enter USA and study and stay there after they finish their education so educated, legal and qualified immigrants and students cant enter and stay in USA but millions of illegal ones can do!
@@killbaal4149 Dear friend, there are millions of talented students all around the world that wish to study in American schools, universities and higher education systems and even in small schools but the immigration and visa laws and policies does not allow them to do that.
Cultural differences are not important because most of the people of the world and particularly the educated, smart and talented people admire the American culture and can easily get assimilated into it.
what is the difference between a restaurant and an eatery?
the tip. 😉
Lol the map also merges 2 other states that should really be just one. New Hampshire and Vermont (actually all those should be New England with Ct, Ma, Me and Ri). Wyoming should be with Co. and DC is just a city in Maryland!
as a vermonter I gotta say I don't wanna merge with any of them
Simple solution: transfer to one of the Ivy League schools. Education is largely signaling rather than substantive so this is a win if you can pull it off.
i think the better question is how colleges have failed americans
Not me I make more money than you
@@traviswilson36 i guarantee you dont
just Trump University 😂
@@reddykilowatt lmao no one even mentioned him, im not a supporter but TDS is a real thing.
@@nathanboyles6222 notice as colleges go down, prisons go up. lucky for DJT since he will have more to choose from. 😂