A bubble effect can be described as being the feeling that, once you leave an area that contains a college campus, you find yourself in an area that is vastly different (usually defined in cultural and socio-political terms) from campus.
The range of a bubble can be described as the distance one can go away from campus before any differences become noticeable.
There are a few schools with urban and suburban campuses that seems to exhibit some bubble effects:
- WUSTL
- Tulane
- Johns Hopkins
- USC
- UChicago
I know this list is far from exhaustive but it’s a start.
Is there any actual correlation (or causation even) between the intensity of bubble effects and any of the following?
- Selectivity
- Average effective tuition paid (that is, the tuition paid after grant aid is disbursed)
That’s a curious list. I guess I perceive “bubbles” differently. I would have said that large universities outside of urban centers, especially state flagships, have the greatest bubble effect, since the campus is so self-contained and the university dominates the local community. I know people who attended Penn, and were very engaged in the greater Philly community, but I have never sensed that Penn State students venture outside of Happy Valley while in attendance.
I am also surprised by the inclusion of Tulane on your list. They are among the few colleges with mandatory community service, they hold an enormous “Crawfish Festival” annually, and most students are drawn to Tulane because of its location in NOLA, in my experience. I’m sure there are a few who never leave campus, but I suspect many, many more venture out to the Vieux Carre and Frenchman Street every weekend. University of Chicago is a little different, because Hyde Park is some distance from other parts of Chicago, and involves traveling through some sketchy neighborhoods, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that students remain near campus a lot. It’s a very vibrant, multicultural neighborhood, however, so I really don’t see it as much of a bubble.
Penn State, UF, UConn, Notre Dame, IU, CU-Boulder have rural campuses but the topic was about colleges in urban/suburban campuses…
Forest Park (i.e. the neighborhood in which WUSTL is) is quite different from the rest of St. Louis, UChicago, USC and JHU are relatively safe areas surrounded by dangerous neighborhoods… but I will take Tulane off the list.
Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. They literally bought miles of land around campus to shield students from the poverty stricken part of the city
I think the “bubble effect” at some urban campuses has diminished somewhat in recent years. The area around the Penn campus has gentrified markedly, as has Hyde Park in Chicago. Morningside Heights, where Columbia and Barnard are located, is now part of the increasingly upscale and unaffordable Upper West Side, and even Harlem is gentrifying rapidly. Fordham’s Rose Hill campus might fit your description a little better.
Case Western Reserve along with the Cleveland Clinic are definitely in a bubble. It’s a very different world outside of the University Circle.
Tulane definitely does not suffer from a bubble effect. Very integrated with the city and also in a rather nice part of New Orleans.
It seems that most schools affected are at least fairly selective…
Clark in Worcester and Trinity in Conn are both bubbly
Fordham University in the Bronx