What are the 7 most affordable LGBTQ-friendly college towns
What are the 7 most affordable LGBTQ-friendly college towns? Find out here on this episode. Then download your FREE Queer Money Kickstarter, a 9-step Guide to Kickstart Your Journey to Financial Independence.
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What are the 7 most affordable LGBTQ-friendly college towns?
On this Queer Money®, we’re sharing the 7 most affordable LGBTQ-friendly college towns on our affordable, LGBTQ+-friendly city series.
Lexington, Kentucky, comes in at #7. Lexington is home to the Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky. The highest rents on our list come in at $1,404 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. The highest home value on our list is $287,000 per property. Lexington has slightly above avgerage for median and avgerage incomes. Lexington is the 19th best college town per Best College Reviews. The Urban Growth Boundary, established in the late ’50s, keeps city density high and preserves surrounding horse farms that give the region its identity.
Iowa City, Iowa, came in at #6. Iowa City is home to the University of Iowa. Iowa City has the lowest avgerage income at $66,000. Iowa City has below avgerage for rents, home values, and cost of living. Iowa City has the highest ranking on Best College Reviews at #9. Iowa City has the highest ranking on this list from College Values Online, coming it at #18 on their list. It is North America’s only UNESCO City of Literature due to the Iowa Writer’s Conference and associations with writers such as Robert Frost, Flannery O’Connor, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Morgantown, West Vermont, came in at #5. It is home to West Virginia University, which is rocking it with the Cs (colleges). Morgantown has the lowest ranking on this list per College Values Online, at #34. On CNNMoney’s 50 Best Places to Launch a Business, Morgantown made the list for several years. In the 1970s, it was picked as an experimental test site by the U.S. Department of Transportation for a “Personal Rapid Transit System.”
Columbia, Missouri, came in at #4. Columbia is home to the University of Missouri, Columbia College, and Stephens College. Columbia has the lowest rents on the list at $1,082 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. Rocking it with the Cs. Columbia is known for progressive politics, protected journalism, and public art. The University of Missouri and healthcare industries are by far the largest employers in this area.
It is worth noting that for all the 56 cities we looked we used the 50 Best College Towns In America from bestcollegereviews.org and 50 Best Small College Towns in America 2024 from collegevaluesonline.com. All cities in the top 10 have 100 on HRC MEI index. All but 1 of the top 20 got a 100. We used all that data and overlayed our affordability metrics.
We have 3 honorable mentions. Madison, Wisconsin at #9. State College, Pennsylvania, at #11. Fort Collins at #14.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came in at #3. Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, and 66 other colleges and universities. It has the 2nd lowest home value at $193,000. Pittsburgh has the highest cost of living in the top 7 at 94.7%. It has the highest median and avgerage incomes at $57,000 and $76,000, respectively. Pittsburgh is #12 on the Best College Reviews list of top 50 college towns. It is home to some 1,600 tech firms (including Apple, Google, and Intel) and federal headquarters for cyber defense, robotics, and energy research.
Syracuse, New York, came in at #2. Syracuse is home to Syracuse University, some schools of the State University of New York, and Le Moyne College. Syracuse has the lowest home value on this list at $158,000. It has the second lowest cost of living at 85.9%. It has the second-highest median income at $55,000 a year. Syracuse came in at #30 on Best College Reviews. Syracruse has large employers which include the Upstate University Health Care System, local universities, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.
Champaign, Illinois, came in at #1. It is home to the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It is a Big 10 University. Champaign has the second lowest rent at $1,142 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. It has the lowest cost of living at 81.1%. It has the lowest median income at $48,000. Champaign has the second-highest avgerage income at $70,000. It came in at #13 per Best College Reviews. It came in at #24 per College Values Online. Big Farm and Kraft Foods split employment opportunities mostly with a growing information and technology sector and the University itself. Champaign is host to a lively music scene, museums, festivals, and a number of theaters.
If you’d like to see the data for this growing series, get the dynamic list of Affordable LGBTQ+ Friendly Cities in the U.S. here or click the link in your podcast player for a growing analysis.
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Previous Bonus Podcast Episodes
- Top 7 Most Affordable LGBTQ Friendly Cities in the Sun Belt
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