Colleges ranked on surroundings, city life off campus

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

High school students beginning the college search have yet another resource at hand as they narrow their choices: a college destinations index that aims to quantify the whole off-campus experience.

And the index finds that New York City, San Jose, Boulder, Colo., and Ithaca, N.Y., are some of the top destinations for college students.

"Your college years are shaped by the classes, the professors and the campus, but they're also shaped by the location of the school," says Kerry Lynch, senior economist for the American Institute for Economic Research, an independent research organization in Great Barrington, Mass.

Students and families may "have a vague sense" of their surroundings but ought to consider factors such as opportunities for internships, access to cultural activities and what kind of people their neighbors will be.

Researchers crunched data on more than 360 metropolitan areas to come up with the top 75 destinations. The cities are ranked in four categories, organized by population. Among criteria, based on publicly available federal data:

• Academic environment, including the number of college students per 1,000 residents.

• Quality of life, including cost of living and number of cultural and entertainment venues per 100,000 residents.

• Professional opportunities, income per capita, unemployment rate and yearly increase in college-educated people moving into or out of the city.

Here are the top five college destinations in each of the four size categories:

Major metro (2.5 million +)

1. New York

2. San Francisco

3. Boston

4. Washington

5. Seattle

Midsize metro (1 million to 2.5 million)

1. San Jose