<p>Two colleges in New Haven now have larger enrollments than Yale, which has about 11,000 students.</p>
<li><p>Southern Connecticut State University, a flagship state university with gleaming new buildings filling its campus, just a few minutes west of Yale. Admissions standards have been skyrocketing lately, mostly because UConn (the top public university in the Northeast) has rebuilt its entire campus in a $2.2 Billion project, gained enormous amounts of prestige, and now attracts the top students from around the country. S-CT State has added numerous dormitories and now has about 13,000 students.</p></li>
<li><p>Gateway Community College, considered the best community college in the state. Students here receive guaranteed admission to UConn or another flagship state school if they do well. The college is currently building a massive new urban campus just a couple of blocks away from Yale University. Enrollment has skyrocked by 20% in a year to about 12,500.</p></li>
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<p>amb3r, I said that UConn, not Southern, attracts top students nationally, although Southern does now too for certain graduate programs. UConn is the top-ranked public university in the Northeast and one that is going through a $2+ billion expansion project. The campus has so much construction, it looks like Shanghai.</p>
<p>Because UConn has recently become very, very selective, many top students in Connecticut now choose to go to Southern CT State, which is the "second" flagship. Southern is by far the second most prestigious public university in the state after UConn, especially at the graduate level.</p>
<p>If you haven't been there in a while, you might not realize that Southern, like UConn, is also going through a massive building project with hundreds of millions of dollars in new buildings, including an amazing student center. Like UConn, it has also rapidly been getting more selective. </p>
<p>Yalies might care because it means that there are tens of thousands of other college students within a mile or two, but also because New Haven is becoming less about Yale and more about other industries in the city (other universities, health care, financials and biotech companies). Unfortunately, this is driving up prices, and why you see dozens of ridiculously expensive restaurants and $3,500 per month luxury lofts opening all around the downtown campus. </p>
<p>Unfortunately I think that as a result, New Haven will soon go from being one of the best college towns in the country to being a sterile outdoor yuppie/shopping mall like Cambridge, Massachusetts. For example, American Apparel and other bland chain stores are scheduled to open in the coming few months.</p>
<p>Yale may soon technically be the 4th largest university in New Haven if the University of New Haven (located just over the New Haven/West Haven town line) keeps renting massive apartment buildings in the city.</p>