Pittsburgh population loss and urban decay (Penn: school, university, prestigious)

[sealie]

Which of those would you call a college town? Everybody knows what he means, he means a place like Ann Arbor or Chapel Hill. Nothing like that until you get to Morgantown.

[PghYoPro]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Pittsburgh has a paucity of entry-level positions in my field, and those that are available pay insulting wages (I literally can't afford financially to take a pay cut from FOOD DELIVERY to be an entry-level accountant for $9/hr. through Accountemps or Robert Half).

These contract positions do indeed, blow. I accepted a contract position via Robert Half for $16/hr out of college doing extremely tedious back-office finance work for a large bank (BNY), as I had difficulty landing salaried interviews after finishing my undergrad.


The benefit for me, personally, was the name recognition of the firm.


I was able to land several interviews and left after 5ish months for a salaried middle-office finance role.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

St.Vincent, California, Waynesburg, Washington & Jefferson, Slippery Rock, Grove City, Westminster, Thiel, Allegheny, Clarion, Edinboro,...and if you are looking for a larger college...WVU is under 1 1/2 hours away. YSU is about an hour or so.


Slippery Rock is experiencing a lot of growth. Overflow from the workers and boom in Cranberry.

A place which has a college is not the same as a college town. Some major colleges (like say UConn, or SUNY Stonybrook) don't really have a "town" to speak of, either because they were plopped in the middle of a rural area or unwalkable suburbs. Others are fairly close to a traditional walkable town, but they are just too small (or have too few on-campus students) to give the local business community a big enough shot in the arm that it takes on a college vibe. To reach that point, you usually need the student population to exceed the full-time resident population.

I'm shocked you didn't list IUP, because it's by far the closest thing Western Pennsylvania has to a true college town. Indiana had the biggest downtown with the most things to do. If I went to school somewhere like California, Slippery Rock, or Washington, I'd get bored with the 2-6 local hangouts almost immediately. Indiana at leas has a bit more to offer. That said, all of my friends and acquaintances who went there still were pretty damned bored - which might be why they moved to Pittsburgh.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by bluecarebear

St.Vincent, California, Waynesburg, Washington & Jefferson, Slippery Rock, Grove City, Westminster, Thiel, Allegheny, Clarion, Edinboro,...and if you are looking for a larger college...WVU is under 1 1/2 hours away. YSU is about an hour or so.


Slippery Rock is experiencing a lot of growth. Overflow from the workers and boom in Cranberry.

To be blunt, if half of those schools closed tomorrow, no one outside of the town they're in would even notice more than likely.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I'm shocked you didn't list IUP, because it's by far the closest thing Western Pennsylvania has to a true college town. Indiana had the biggest downtown with the most things to do. If I went to school somewhere like California, Slippery Rock, or Washington, I'd get bored with the 2-6 local hangouts almost immediately. Indiana at leas has a bit more to offer. That said, all of my friends and acquaintances who went there still were pretty damned bored - which might be why they moved to Pittsburgh.

I went to IUP for a weekend one time; it made me pretty grateful I went to a school in an actual city, not the middle of nowhere. I'm rather glad most of the Northeast (except Penn State) has their major universities in real cities, not the middle of nowhere like you see with a lot of the big schools in the rest of the country.

[bluecarebear]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

To be blunt, if half of those schools closed tomorrow, no one outside of the town they're in would even notice more than likely.

Well, they are "college towns". The college is the town.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

To be blunt, if half of those schools closed tomorrow, no one outside of the town they're in would even notice more than likely.

Except maybe the hundreds of thousands of alumni from the schools mentioned and of course Donnie Iris who is a grad of the Rock.

[Merge]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

Except maybe the hundreds of thousands of alumni from the schools mentioned and of course Donnie Iris who is a grad of the Rock.

Not to mention the employees that work at those colleges.

But that's not the subject of this thread and those schools aren't related, even tangentially, to what's being discussed here.

[Paul2421]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

To be blunt, if half of those schools closed tomorrow, no one outside of the town they're in would even notice more than likely.

really disagree as a number of those schools are as well renowned as pitt to area employers

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by Paul2421

really disagree as a number of those schools are as well renowned as pitt to area employers

No