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Private schools just don't get quite as large as state-supported ones; their empire-building tends to steer towards selectivity rather than scale. Another factor is that rural college towns are pretty much a contrivance of early American government being (stolen-)land-rich but cash-poor, and so when they spent on higher ed it was with land. Hence the 18th-century land-grant charters for UGA and UNC, and later the federal Morrill Act. Everywhere else in the world, universities thrived in wealthy cities, and America's largest private institutions seem to follow that pattern.
Hence, the largest and most influential private universities tend to be in larger cities, but they do often dominate their respective neighborhoods. The most collegiate parts of Boston (towards the southwest, from the Fenway to Allston) are dominated by private institutions like BU and Northeastern. UMass Boston is way off on a peninsula in the southeast corner of the city.
An exception might be for religious colleges. The country's largest private college is BYU, but I can't say that Provo strikes me as a super collegiate place. Same goes for, say, Liberty (which claims 110,000 students!) and Lynchburg. Besides Notre Dame and Seton Hall, it's interesting that most large Catholic colleges are in big cities, perhaps following American Catholics' more urban settlement.
Given the smaller size of private colleges, you'll have to think of much smaller towns and smaller colleges. Hanover, Princeton, and Palo Alto* at the high end; in the middle, lots of liberal arts colleges situated in tiny college towns, from Williamstown to Oberlin to Northfield to Claremont.*
* You can't blame these towns for being swallowed up by Californian sprawl.
I believe that a lot of that number includes online students.
Even Seton Hall is in the middle of NE NJ and in the NYC metro area.
Sewanee, Tennessee. The Episcopal university is so integrated with the community that no one even refers to the school by its actual name (The University of the South) but as simply Sewanee. The university and town are located in the middle of a 13,000 acre forest on top of a mountain between Chattanooga and Nashville.
Private schools just don't get quite as large as state-supported ones; their empire-building tends to steer towards selectivity rather than scale. Another factor is that rural college towns are pretty much a contrivance of early American government being (stolen-)land-rich but cash-poor, and so when they spent on higher ed it was with land. Hence the 18th-century land-grant charters for UGA and UNC, and later the federal Morrill Act. Everywhere else in the world, universities thrived in wealthy cities, and America's largest private institutions seem to follow that pattern.
Hence, the largest and most influential private universities tend to be in larger cities, but they do often dominate their respective neighborhoods. The most collegiate parts of Boston (towards the southwest, from the Fenway to Allston) are dominated by private institutions like BU and Northeastern. UMass Boston is way off on a peninsula in the southeast corner of the city.
An exception might be for religious colleges. The country's largest private college is BYU, but I can't say that Provo strikes me as a super collegiate place. Same goes for, say, Liberty (which claims 110,000 students!) and Lynchburg. Besides Notre Dame and Seton Hall, it's interesting that most large Catholic colleges are in big cities, perhaps following American Catholics' more urban settlement.
Given the smaller size of private colleges, you'll have to think of much smaller towns and smaller colleges. Hanover, Princeton, and Palo Alto* at the high end; in the middle, lots of liberal arts colleges situated in tiny college towns, from Williamstown to Oberlin to Northfield to Claremont.*
* You can't blame these towns for being swallowed up by Californian sprawl.
Point well made about private universities heavily tilted towards urban areas or near enough to big cities
So I may ask in terms of Notre Dame, a Catholic and thus private university: what if Notre Dame hadn’t been located so close to Chicago (when fans of other schools go to South Bend, they generally fly in to O’Hare. ND used a common method to build its stature and fame: football. And without Chicago and its Irish and other Catholic etnics, the program may never have taken off..and the university might been smaller and less known
The University of Michigan is, of course a public university (although arguably with its degree of autonomy, per centage of out of state students, enormous endowment and miniscule state funding, it very well may be the least public of the nation’s public universities)
U-M has many reasons for its greatness. Traditionally three public universities comprised the super elite of state u’s: Cal, UVA, U-M (while it would be hard today not to say four with UCLA).
Your mention of rural locations for publics got me thinking. As you noted, rural areas are not the best place for a university. But big cities, for a different reason, may not be the best either. Big cities are intectually stimulating, feeding a definite need for a university. But big cities are not necessarily good for a sense of place, in creating a college community.
Thus, Lawrencei, Charlottesville, and Bloomington may be great college town, but lack the stimulation of major metros. Minneapolis and Seattle offer that big city pulse, but U of M and Dub U can feel a bit swallowed up in them
So if I’m right, maybe, just maybe, Ann Arbor is the baby bear of college towns...located at the far edge of Metro Detroit but beneefitting from being part of it. Far enough removed from Detroit to be a true college town, able to create a world of its own that could not happen in college towns of both public and orivate universities which are smack in the heart of the metro area but outside the main city: Cambridge, College Park, Evanston, Norman, Tempe, Palo Alto, Berkeley, etc, where their presence is less felt
I’d be interested in seeing if I was right on that point (I just thought of one other public u college town that shares that location attribute with Ann Arbor: Boulder....although I still consider AA a better model of thix
Point well made about private universities heavily tilted towards urban areas or near enough to big cities
So I may ask in terms of Notre Dame, a Catholic and thus private university: what if Notre Dame hadn’t been located so close to Chicago (when fans of other schools go to South Bend, they generally fly in to O’Hare. ND used a common method to build its stature and fame: football. And without Chicago and its Irish and other Catholic etnics, the program may never have taken off..and the university might been smaller and less known
The University of Michigan is, of course a public university (although arguably with its degree of autonomy, per centage of out of state students, enormous endowment and miniscule state funding, it very well may be the least public of the nation’s public universities)
U-M has many reasons for its greatness. Traditionally three public universities comprised the super elite of state u’s: Cal, UVA, U-M (while it would be hard today not to say four with UCLA).
Your mention of rural locations for publics got me thinking. As you noted, rural areas are not the best place for a university. But big cities, for a different reason, may not be the best either. Big cities are intectually stimulating, feeding a definite need for a university. But big cities are not necessarily good for a sense of place, in creating a college community.
Thus, Lawrencei, Charlottesville, and Bloomington may be great college town, but lack the stimulation of major metros. Minneapolis and Seattle offer that big city pulse, but U of M and Dub U can feel a bit swallowed up in them
So if I’m right, maybe, just maybe, Ann Arbor is the baby bear of college towns...located at the far edge of Metro Detroit but beneefitting from being part of it. Far enough removed from Detroit to be a true college town, able to create a world of its own that could not happen in college towns of both public and orivate universities which are smack in the heart of the metro area but outside the main city: Cambridge, College Park, Evanston, Norman, Tempe, Palo Alto, Berkeley, etc, where their presence is less felt
I’d be interested in seeing if I was right on that point (I just thought of one other public u college town that shares that location attribute with Ann Arbor: Boulder....although I still consider AA a better model of thix
Athens fits your model -- it's a little over 50 miles away from Atlanta.
Not many, but there are a few:
Evanston (Northwestern)
Ithaca (Cornell & Ithaca College)
Carlisle, PA (Dickinson College) to some extent; college isn't really big enough though
Area around Syracuse U., but certainly not the city as a whole
Athens fits your model -- it's a little over 50 miles away from Atlanta.
You are right
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