NEW YORK – Two Texas cities have landed on SmartAsset’s list of the most vulnerable college towns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
College Station, home to Texas A&M University, ranked second. More than 44 percent of the Brazos County city’s population are college students, the second-highest in the study. The city’s economy relies heavily on food service, and the area has the 12th-highest concentration of restaurants and bars at 9.27 percent.
San Marcos ranked ninth overall. The city, home to Texas State University, has the fourth-highest student population relative to the city’s population, 23rd-highest concentration of entertainment establishments, 13th-highest concentration of bookstores, and 18th-highest concentration of hotels.
Other cities on the list are:
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No. 1 Blooming, Ind., Indiana University Bloomington;
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No. 3 Champaign, Ill., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;
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No. 4 Athens, Ga., University of Georgia;
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No. 5 Flagstaff, Ariz., Northern Arizona University;
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No. 6 Davis, Calif., University of California, Davis;
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No. 7 Ann Arbor, Mich., University of Michigan;
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No. 8 Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
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No. 10 (tie) Ames, Iowa, Iowa State University; and
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No. 10 (tie) Auburn, Ala., Auburn University.
To determine the rankings, SmartAsset compared 95 college towns with populations of 50,000 or more. The study looked at students as a percentage of the population, college staff as a percentage of workers, and concentration of restaurants and bars, entertainment establishments, bookstores, and hotels.
The Real Estate Center has more COVID-19 information online: