SANTA FE A TOP COLLEGE TOWN?
Ranking as No. 6 in the nation raises some eyebrows
Anational economic research group has named Santa Fe one of the best college destinations in America, a distinction that raised a few quizzical eyebrows among students in the City Different.
“It is sort of strange that Santa Fe would be one of the top college towns because the population itself is not that young,” noted Graeme Thistlewaite, a St. John’s College freshman from Hawaii.
The American Institute for Economic Research, a nonprofit organization that claims on its website to help Americans “deepen their economic and financial knowledge,” ranked Santa Fe No. 6 on a list of the top 20 college towns. The entire list names 75 Best Metro Areas and College Towns for Students, with four categories ranging from the top metro areas with more than 2.5 million residents all the way down to cities with fewer than 250,000 residents, which is where Santa Fe was placed. Eleven factors were used to determine a city’s ranking, including social and cultural life, and work opportunities.
Rosalind Greenstein, director of research and education at the AIER, said cities in the smallest category had to have at least 10,000 students enrolled in higher education. Data provided by Greenstein to the Journal — which she says came from the U.S. Census Bureau and other federal government data — show that Santa Fe has 10,569 residents enrolled in college courses.
Santa Fe Community College has a student population of 6,497 students, with 2,899 of them attending full time, meaning the majority of
Santa Fe’s higher education population consists of parttime community college students. Besides St. John’s College, four-year higher ed institutions in Santa Fe include the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and the Institute of American Indian Arts.
The other towns on the list had major state colleges with large student populations. Corvallis, Ore., placed just behind Santa Fe and home to Oregon State University, has a little more than half the population of Santa Fe, but has a college student population of 21,045.
Greenstein said Santa Fe ranked so high because of its art and culture. The city is ranked No. 1 in arts and entertainment out of the 20 cities in its category because it has 0.6 arts and entertainment establishments per 1,000 residents, according to AIER data. Santa Fe is also ranked second in culture for having 1.4 employees in cultural institutions per 1,000 residents.
“What we see in social and cultural characteristics were so much higher,” Greenstein said. “Its strengths are mostly cultural.”
And a strong art scene is something local college students can appreciate.
“I think it’s cool that it’s trying to be an artsy town,” said Kalysta Fern, a 20-yearold freshman at St. John’s College in Santa Fe from Missoula, Mont. “I really respect that. I think it’s one of my favorite things about the town, from what I’ve experienced. Canyon Road is absolutely lovely.”
But Santa Fe didn’t do so well in some of the other categories. It ranked dead last in accessibility since only 5.2 percent of Santa Feans walk, bike or use public transportation to commute. It fell to 19th in economic activity for having negative job growth between 2010 and 2014, and it’s 18th in youth unemployment, cost of rent, and for having workers in science- and technologyrelated fields.
These factors make it hard for 20-year-old St. John’s junior Thomas Heiden, from Idaho, to believe that Santa Fe made it so high in the rankings based on arts and culture alone.
“For the kind of colleges that are here, I do kind of think that the No. 1 in arts and entertainment could merit a ranking of No. 6,” Heiden said. “If I was just looking at (Santa Fe) without knowing what kind of schools were here, I don’t know if I would agree with that (ranking).”
When asked if a strong presence of art and culture establishments alone should merit Santa Fe being named one of the best college destinations in the country, Greenstein said this is merely a list of great cities that just so happen to have at least 10,000 people enrolled in higher education. Labeling it as among the best “college towns,” he said, is misleading.
“The problem is the way we label them,” Greenstein said. “We called the smallest group ‘college towns.’ On average, a higher proportion of (Santa Fe’s) population is enrolled in higher education, and it has a strong arts and culture scene. We just had a naming problem.”
But at least both students and the AIER agree that Santa Fe has low accessibility and is especially less accessible to students at the St. John’s campus in the eastern foothills.
“It’s kind of strange for this school in particular because we’re sort of isolated from the main part of town,” Heiden said. “If you don’t have a car, it is kind of a pain to be here as a college student. But if you have transportation, it’s pretty nice, I think.”
The Santa Fe University of Art and Design, with about 500 students, started a cityfunded shuttle service last year from its campus near St. Michael’s Drive and Cerrillos Road to the Plaza, but its three-month pilot run had mixed results and the service was not continued.
Santa Fe has a lot beautiful things to see and do, but Thistlewaite said it’s not easy to get to all those places.
“I was surprised when I first heard that it was one of the best, especially because of accessibility,” Thistlewaite said of the ranking. “How can it be a good college town if you’re not able to access the town itself and get around it? I think if you can get over the inaccessibility and the price, what is accessible is very nice and interesting, and there’s a lot to do if you have the ability to do it.”