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The Least (and Most) Expensive College Towns

Written by Nickel - 5 Comments

Some of my favorite places are college towns. Thus, I was very interested when I saw the results of a recent study by Coldwell Banker on the most (and least) affordable college towns in the United States. Read on for the results…

First off, here are the ten most affordable college towns, including average home prices:

1. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX — $164,133
2. Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS — $169,433
3. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA — $173,317
4. Notre Dame, South Bend, IN — $173,600
5. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN — $175,250
6. Clemson University, Clemson, SC — $176,475
7. Baylor University, Waco, TX — $178,500
8. University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS — $179,550
9. Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS — $185,850
10. University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC — $190,058

And now for the top 10 most expensive college towns — to be fair, most of these aren’t what I’d consider to be true college towns, but they are home to some pretty major Universities.

1. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA — $1,550,000
2. UCLA, Los Angeles, CA — $1,274,342
3. USC, Los Angeles, CA — $1,274,342
4. University of California, Berkeley, CA — $1,186,500
5. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA — $811,525
6. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL — $674,250
7. University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL — $671,854
8. Colorado University, Boulder, CO — $546,350
9. University of Maryland, College Park, MD — $462,035
10. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN — $397,133

Published on November 9th, 2005 - 5 Comments
Filed under: Education, Real Estate

About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

5 Responses to “The Least (and Most) Expensive College Towns”

1
Caitlin Says:
November 9th, 2005 at 6:32 pm
LA as “college town” heh…that’s funny
2
Allen Says:
November 14th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
CA is way overpriced these days.
3
Brandon Says:
December 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
This is the dumbest article ever.

In Youngstown, OH, home to Youngstown State, a fine school with strong music and athletic programs, you can buy about 10 houses for the 164K which buys you one in Lubbock, TX.

Where did they get their stats? From Barbara Corcoran and Donald Trump’s lunch date?
4
tom Says:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
seems like there must be a minimum student body bc they are all big schools. why else wouldn’t they list the other univ in LA?

also, why aren’t any of the nyc schools on the list? if LA counts, nyc should too
5
Murphy_a Says:
August 25th, 2010 at 3:39 am
South Carolina charges double what the much better schools in bordering NC charge for tuition (Duke, NC). Insane.

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