Cover Stories
School Daze
From sprawling urban campuses to idyllic college towns, finding the right match for your college-bound senior is a matter of doing your homework.
Ah, spring, the time of year when high school seniors’ thoughts turn to ivy-covered halls, grassy lawns shaded by autumntinged oaks and (close your eyes, moms and dads) frat parties and Saturday game days. As those students contemplate their college acceptance letters and their parents focus on tuition bills and student loans, their minds certainly turn also to considering the qualities they seek in a quintessential American college town.As a college professor at a campus in upstate New York and the father of a high school senior, I have heard a multitude of reasons why a student will choose one school over another, but spending four years in such an idyllic setting is the experience most students, even if they cannot yet articulate it, truly want.
Of course, such communities hold an appeal for those other than young academics and their visiting parents. Travelers enjoy visiting active and progressive places where art and culture are flourishing, new architecture is exciting, and where hotels, restaurants, and sporting events are within walking distance of Main Street. For many approaching retirement, college towns hold great appeal for these same reasons. The communities presented here offer such an experience, with colleges that truly inform the environment.
Boulder is nestled in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, 5,430-feet above sea level and about 45 minutes from Denver. Students at the University of Colorado enjoy living in a prosperous, energetic town with a vibrant college neighborhood filled with pizza joints and coffee houses, bars, music clubs and clothing shops. There is a plethora of sports activities on campus, recreational opportunities in the mountains outside of town, and excellent academic programs in architecture, business, engineering, law and music.
“I think Boulder is a wonderful city that provides a lot of outdoor activities and community events. There are bike paths everywhere, and lots of hiking paths along the foothills. From my experience, it is a very active and fit community and is full of good energy,” said Patrick Campbell, a 21-year-old junior studying architecture.
Although some students may attend college here just for the frat parties and powder skiing, Boulder is a thriving and diverse cultural center as well where Tibetan, Asian and Native American influences add to the town’s eclectic mix. Many high tech and scientific research firms have located here, providing this beautiful mountain town with sophisticated patrons for its many gourmet restaurants and music, dance and theater venues, and job opportunities for graduates who don’t want to leave the altitude and attitude.
The University of North Carolina is the oldest state-supported university in the country. Chapel Hill, home of UNC’s main campus, was founded in 1819 on a hill where the original chapel once stood. In this sweet mid-southern town the average age of its residents is 24, and females outnumber males 54 percent to 45 percent. Preferred activities include playing Frisbee on campus lawns, strolling with friends down Franklin Street on a warm fall afternoon, and cheering the Tar Heels during the annual home game against Duke at the Dean Smith Center.
It’s not all fun and games in Chapel Hill, however. The university has an excellent academic reputation for undergraduate education, and its graduate schools, including the Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the schools of Law, Medicine, Pharmacy and Public Administration, are nationally recognized. One of Chapel Hill’s major benefits is its location just west of Triangle Research Park, a corporate complex developed in 1959 where companies such as IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks maintain large research and development facilities. The presence of TRP, along with UNC, has made Chapel Hill a highly sought-after town for permanent residency as well as for st
udents, resulting in off-campus housing prices that are relatively high compared to other UNC campuses in the state.“Living off campus is more expensive here than in other college towns, but comparable to living on campus. …Is being within easy walking distance of campus worth the higher price? For me it definitely is,” said Meghan Davis, a 21-yearold senior at UNC.
If you have not yet heard of Gambier, Ohio, you are not alone. Gambier, site of Kenyon College, is a “sleeper,” an undiscovered gem in the middle of the state’s fertile Kokosing River Valley.
