The reasons to move to South Florida are pretty long -- beaches, sun, lack of snow, easy driving conditions -- just kidding on that last one. One reason apparently not to move down to the region? College.
Despite a sprinkling of fine institutions of higher learning all over the tri-county area, a handful of local towns are clunking around at the bottom of WalletHub.com's ranking of the Best & Worst College Cities and Towns in America.
The stats were crunched on the list using 23 key metrics, according to the folks behind the ranking. The considerations included stuff like housing costs, number of students per capita, unemployment rate, number of nightlife options per capita, percentage of rental units, and average pizza and burger costs. In total, WalletHub ranked 280 cities from best to worst.
South Florida doesn't land anywhere in the top ten:
1. Oxford, OH 2. State College, PA 3. Chapel Hill, NC 4. Corvallis, OR 5. Collage Station, TX 6. Laramie, WY 7. San Luis Obispo, CA 8. Stillwater, OK 9. Bozeman, MT 10. East Lansing, MI.
But . . . we're all over the list's bottom.
271. Port St. Lucie, FL 272. Hialeah, FL 273. Coral Springs, FL 274. Newark, NJ 275. Joliet, IL 276. Springfield, MA 277. Miramar, FL 278. North Las Vegas, NV 279. Bridgeport, CT 280. Yonkers NY
So yes, Miramar is actually a worst place to spend your college years . . . than Newark. Chew on that for awhile.
The experts behind the list also broke down the ranking by individual category. For example, Pembroke Pines, Boca Raton, and Port St. Lucie all were the lowest ranked in the percent of rental units ranking. Port St. Lucie, Hialeah, and Miramar held down the lowest position in the nightlife options per capita category.
All in all, this is not a good look for South Florida schools. That said, as someone who's actually spent a good amount of time in Oxford, OH (home of Miami University) I can personally attest that it is just as boring as Miramar. The only difference is everybody in Oxford is still wearing Abercrombie and Fitch.
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