<p>What other colleges are in cool towns like Ann Arbor?</p>
<p>I would go to U-Michigan , but I'm out of state and the tuition is absurd.</p>
<p>Some other schools I'm looking at are Ohio State, Arizona State, University of Colorado...</p>
<p>Basically I'm just looking for a college with a nice campus, in a fun college town, with reasonable out of state tution...</p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Depends on how you define “fun”. Have you ever actually been to AA, or are you just using that as an example of a town with a good reputation? </p>
<p>What do you mean by “reasonable” OOS tuition? How much can you afford to pay?</p>
<p>It is not that similar to Ann Arbor, but I thought Lincoln NE was a great larger college town.</p>
<p>The University of MO-Columbia (Mizzou) is a very nice campus and Columbia is a good college town, pretty under-rated in my opinion. The OOS tuition is better than Michigan. There are a lot of OOS students in the Journalism school, a fair number in the other schools from surrounding midwestern states, and a pretty big bunch from Texas.</p>
<p>I’ve heard UW-Madison has similar reputation, and I have visited and it is really a good college town, imo. My daughter loves it. But I don’t know the tuition rates.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor is special. It is small enough to be dominated by the University and its students but large enough to offer students and residents all sorts of entertainment. </p>
<p>It is close enough to a major city to enjoy the amenities of its suburbs (upscale dining and shopping venues, international airport, professional sports, musical concerts, museums, nightclubs etc…) but fortunate enough that the city’s center is sufficiently distant and lacking in charm to have allowed Ann Arbor to develop into a clear and distinct entity.</p>
<p>Finally, part of the charm of Ann Arbor is the intellectual level of the city as a whole. Approximately 70% of Ann Arbor residents have college degrees, more than half of which are graduate level degrees.</p>
<p>I think of only 10 or so college towns that are as charming and fun as Ann Arbor:</p>
<p>Athens (GA)
Austin (TX)
Boomington (IN)
Boulder (CO)
Charlottesville (VA)
Columbia (MO)
Gainesville (FL)
Iowa City (IA)
Madison (WI)</p>
<p>Austin, TX is a fun place, but it’s getting too big to be considered a college “town”.</p>
<p>Lawrence, KS is a great college town. </p>
<p>For some other possibilities, see:
[The</a> American College Town](<a href=“http://pubpages.unh.edu/~gumprech/Americancollegetown.html]The”>http://pubpages.unh.edu/~gumprech/Americancollegetown.html)</p>
<p>By the way blingnjkbling, last time I checked, Colorado was not that much cheaper than Michigan.</p>
<p>I think Wisconsin-Madison is a great bargain.</p>
<p>University of Vermont, Burlington, but the OOS tuition probably runs about 40K.</p>
<p>Amherst, MA. A little smaller than Ann Arbor but a great college town. UMass is pretty reasonable OOS and you can take courses at Amherst College, Smith, Mt. Holyoke and Hampshire. It’s pretty close to Northampton–a nice small college city.</p>
<p>I’d say Madison, WI and Athens, GA</p>
<p>Missoula, MT, Chico, CA, Santa Cruz, CA, Princeton, NJ</p>
<p>Wow, Missoula huh? I’d like to check that one out!</p>
<p>I agree with gadad. I went to med school in Madtown and have a daughter graduating from UGA next month. Both cities are very similar; medium size, great live entertainment, great restaurants (esp Athens -Five and Ten, National, Last Resort etc.), and offer excellent Division 1 sports. The major difference is the climate.</p>
<p>Madison is much larger than Athens.</p>
<p>I have been to Missoula enough times to know it’s NOT like Ann Arbor. Perhaps more like Madison?</p>
<p>gadad, Missoula was a surprisingly interesting college town when I visited there for a few days a couple of years ago. I’m not sure I think it is the same kind of college town as AA, or Madison, though. Lots of outdoorsy opportunities. I accidentally wandered into a Day of the Dead parade downtown that was the most entertaining parade I have ever seen (I don’t like parades of any sort, normally, but this one was fun.) There is still a lot of housing that is not high-rise apartment very near campus, and that gives the whole area a lively feel. (Like Madison, WI and Columbia, MO 30-40 years ago.)</p>
<p>For the right kind of person, Missoula could be a great place to go to college.</p>
<p>I liked UDel’s immediate surroundings, though Newark is not a nice town. I loved Boulder. Pitt is not like Ann Arbor but is a booming, active, vivacious college scene. Ohio U in Athens is supposed to have a nice small town feel to it.</p>
<p>I would look into U of Illinois Champagne Urbana. </p>
<p>Good school, great campus, fun college town.</p>
<p>I would second what zapfino said in #6 about Austin. When I was an undergrad at UT in the 1970s, it still was thought of and seemed like a college town. And on a couple of trips I made to Madison back then, I could not help but notice the similarities. But now even though UT has about the same number of students as then (50K undergrad + grad), the Austin population has more than doubled to a figure around 800,000 in the new census. Austin used to be UT + state government, but has become much more than that over the past few decades.</p>
<p>IMHO</p>
<p>Athens (UGA)
Boulder (CU)
Chapel Hill (UNC)
Charlottesville (UVa)
Madison (Wisc.)</p>
<p>Are the only ones that really stand up to AA. I’m not personally a huge fan of the area around Bloomington. I like Austin, but I’m not sure I would consider it a college town, and I’ve never been to a lot of places, like Columbia (Mo) or Iowa City.</p>