
Small Colleges Can Save Towns in Middle America (2017) - Tomte
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-14/small-colleges-can-save-towns-in-middle-america
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rootoor
I am skeptical that this can scale well. Not every small town can have an
expensive college or university.

And besides, the towns that do get/have these institutions become gentrified
and all of the the original residents get pushed to nearby small towns by
professionals from more affluent regions.

In the end you end up with an upscale, expensive small town and surrounding
depressed blue collar towns.

Source: I’m from a small town with a university.

~~~
stevecalifornia
San Luis Obispo is a good case. Really expensive. None of the graduates can
really live here. Also, very gentrified. The mayor recently said that she
didn't want to be mayor of a town that's all old white people. Not sure how
that's not incredibly racist-- but you get the point.

~~~
drb91
It’s hardly racist to express personal preference.

It’s also not the same as saying “I don’t want any old white people in this
town”.

~~~
trentmb
> It’s hardly racist to express personal preference.

I mean, it's a racist personal preference. Caring about whether the expression
of it is racist seems besides the point?

~~~
drb91
I am probably being too pedantic here, as it is certainly unethical to state
that publicly as a mayor. I only mean to convey there’s no such thing as an
unethical thought, only unethical actions.

Among other things, it is certainly socially acceptable to date or socialize
mostly with people inside your own race, and I don’t know of many people who
would hold this behavior to be racist.

EDITS: wording, clarity. Apologies.

~~~
whatshisface
> _there’s no such thing as an unethical thought, only unethical actions_

Gladly throwing myself in the pedantry to avoid the real discussion, the only
reason we listen to other people at all is that their words are related to
their thoughts and their actions. So, the reason you'd admonish someone for
saying something horrible is that they indicated they were thinking something
horrible, which gains status as horrible because it congruent with a mind that
would do something horrible.

~~~
drb91
You’re right. If they had said something slightly different, I would be mad.
It certainly isn’t behavior to condone. In a political context, it probably is
racist.

That said, I still do not think I would call it racism. Most of us prefer to
be around people our own age when given the opportunity—for shared culture,
lifestyles, etc. Is that ageist? I really don’t think that bigotry really
applies here. It’s much more useful to apply solely to actions, which are
easier to reason about. Discriminatory personal preference can certainly be
harmful, but it seems like a distinct social phenomenon to bigotry.

More pedantry...

> So, the reason you'd admonish someone for saying something horrible is that
> they indicated they were thinking something horrible

No, the reason would be fear that they would act on their thoughts, or because
their speech did affect people, not that their thoughts are themselves
immoral.

~~~
whatshisface
Archie Bunker has a lot of leeway in his social life and armchair social
theorizing, but that's mainly because it has little chance of impacting
anything (although there are some who would debate that on the grounds that
your social life can support your professional life). In this thread, people
are upset because it was said to have come from a person who was in power,
someone who might be able to realize an unsavory ideal they were harboring.

Edit: To complete the pedantry, note that the end of my sentence brings it in
line with the content your objection to the start of the sentence: > _which
gains status as horrible because it congruent with a mind that would do
something horrible._

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munk-a
Sorry, to clarify... The article implies that a town of 7000 was better off
because it had an additional 3000 residents, this is entirely unsustainable
and for a small town in middle america to "be saved" a bunch of other failing
small towns would need to continue to feed that one working small town. In the
long view those other small towns would slowly evaporate into the town with
the college (turning it into not-a-small-town) or would evaporate into an
existing urban center, and the article specifically notes that the college is
notable only to locals, so we can assume (possibly wrongly, I admit) that the
majority of the student base isn't composed of people moving from cities for a
rural education (which is the only sort of scenario I'd see this working in
and actually does work in a number of small towns in new england that are
essentially propped up by money flowing in via the university)

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zenbob
I wonder if the student loan/debt bubble will hit these towns hard (if it
turns out to be a bubble). Spending on higher education seems like its gains
are unsustainable.

~~~
Apocryphon
Valid counter to the article's premise, and leads me to a dumb question: why
haven't more colleges attempted to cut costs in recent years, as tuitions and
student debt continue to spiral?

~~~
village-idiot
Because there’s no incentive to.

First, the market clearly does not reward cheap education. A lot of
prospective students and their parents are enamored with pricey colleges
either for the status or for the perceived value. This is probably a result of
cultural expectations lagging behind actual reality by a few decades.

Second, all the intermediary parties have no incentives to control cost.
Student debt cannot be discharged under bankruptcy, so why would the lenders
ever say no to _any_ debt? They don’t care that the college is overpriced by a
factor of 10 and the student will never pay off their debt fully, they’ll
still pay 6-11% interest for the rest of their lives, which is highly
lucrative for the lender.

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HarryHirsch
Count me skeptical. The two industries that a smalltown college supports are
landlording and beer bars. Neither offer skilled employment for the townsfolk,
and there's an incentive for the local politicians to be "business-friendly",
i.e. anti-student and pro-landowner. Not a good combination, especially if the
landowner lives out of town.

~~~
maxerickson
There's gonna be more educational staff than bartenders. By a fair bit.

~~~
HarryHirsch
A good number of faculty at smalltown private colleges are adjuncts, with a
salary of USD 600 per month and course, or thereabouts. They aren't going to
spread the wealth. New faculty are often hired at non-tenure-track level, with
a salary around 40-50 kUSD.

Higher education is in crisis. The State University of New York is talking
layoffs. They are reasonably sound, if they feel the stress, what is it like
at the Catholic College of Our Lady of the High Desert in northeastern New
Mexico?

Many small colleges are going to go down in the next 5 - 10 years, and good
riddance. They aren't providing a better education than the state school
nearby, and they are more expensive. What's the point of Paine College when
you can attend Augusta State University for less?

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protomyth
It certainly does work for the reservations that have community colleges.
People forget the colleges aren't just students, teachers, and buildings. It
does drive jobs, but they also provide a focal point for programs, grant
funding, social services, and events that would otherwise not visit the
community. Most of the community colleges on reservations are also vocational
schools. This combination of activities has a positive effect on a community
as a whole.

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adventured
Small to mid-size college towns are among the best places to live in the US,
and there are a lot of them to choose from coast to coast.

They have an economic base - and often tax support - that keeps them from
eroding as other small towns without colleges tend to. Their infrastructure
tends to be reasonably maintained, whereas most non-college towns always
struggle to upkeep even basic infrastructure. Crime and murder rates are
typically between very low and moderate (and almost universally below what you
see in large cities). Housing is extremely affordable. Connectivity is usually
solid, another perk of the town having more resources and consistent economic
activity.

Pikeville, KY is too small imo at just 7,000 people, however you can find a
lot of other college towns / cities at more like 15,000 to 30,000 that have
better lifestyle amenities.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> Housing is extremely affordable.

Is there data for this? I spent a good chunk of my life in a mid-sized college
town in the south, and last I checked the average home values there are
eclipsing $400K.

Just some data points, pulling median home values in some college towns across
the US off the top of my head:

Davis, CA: $641,500

Charlottesville, VA: $412,700

Chapel Hill, NC: $449,980

State College, PA: $316,600

Williamsburg, VA: $303,400

Berkeley, CA: $1,281,900

Wellesley, MA: $1,267,600

Davidson, NC: $360,000

Ann Arbor, MI: $360,300

Some of these aren't too bad, but I don't think they fall into the category of
extremely affordable. Professors and doctors and all the folks associated with
Colleges and Universities make enough money to drive up home prices!

~~~
gnulinux
Among all the middle sized cities you could choose, you included Berkeley? One
of the most expensive cities in the whole US. Since Berkeley is a college
town, most people (i.e. students) are ok living in very, _very_ shitty
conditions. When I lived in Berkeley as a student my rent was something like
$700 plus utilities and I was sharing a tiny house with 5 other people and my
room was a triple. Living comfortably (i.e. single with acceptable personal
space) costs you >$1300. I'm living in Boston currently and my rent is $900
for a large single. Am I crazy to guess that Berkeley housing market is even
more expensive than Boston? There are definitely better places to live in US
than Berkeley, ime most people who live there are either students or engineers
working in the Valley making 6 figures. So imho GP comment can still be right
if you exclude edge cases.

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village-idiot
Honestly, I don’t know if anything can save little towns, at least most of
them.

At this point it’s a question of which 5% of towns will consume the population
of the remainder of their peers.

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shoguning
The overall economics of small mid-tier universities is getting drastically
worse--a few exceptions notwithstanding.

I expect a lot more closures and consolidations as tuition competition
increases and students become more hesitant to take on debt.

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NTDF9
I think it is more unsustainable to build infrastructure for small towns sized
7000.

We should want more consolidation so as to spend less on infrastructure
creation and maintenance. 7000 is too small.

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bongo662
Lexington Kentucky could be a good example of this, though I dont know if UK
would be considered small.

~~~
village-idiot
At 30,000 students, UK is definitely not small.

Also, it’s a land grant university. Those are big, old, and typically have
great endowments.

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AtlasBarfed
That will work out great when the middle tier of colleges implodes.

