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\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhat are the best college towns in Texas?<\/p>\n
Besides Austin, other cities in the Lone Star State were scattered among WalletHub’s rankings. A few stood out in specific categories, for better or worse:<\/p>\n
Brownsville offers the lowest cost of living for young people nationally, which is three times more inexpensive than Stanford, Calif., which has the highest.
\nLaredo has the lowest cost of higher education, which is four times lower than Evanston, Ill., with the highest.
\nHuntsville had the fourth-lowest “brain drain” \u2014 defined as the departure of educated\/professional people from one area to another that offers better pay and\/or living conditions.
\nPearland has the lowest share of part-time jobs to offer, at a five-times lower rate than Stony Brook University, N.Y., which has the highest share. Pearland also has the fifth-lowest share of rental units.
\nMcKinney has the fifth-lowest share of rental units.<\/p>\n
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Here’s how each Texas city included in the study ranked overall:<\/p>\n
No. 1:\u00a0Austin<\/p>\n
No. 45:\u00a0College Station<\/p>\n
No. 65: San Antonio<\/p>\n
No. 67: Houston<\/p>\n
No. 89: Fort Worth<\/p>\n
No. 91: Plano<\/p>\n
No. 103: Denton<\/p>\n
No. 108: Lubbock<\/p>\n
No. 109: Corpus Christi<\/p>\n
No. 123: San Marcos<\/p>\n
No. 125: Killeen<\/p>\n
No. 130: Bryan<\/p>\n
No. 132: Dallas<\/p>\n
No. 143: Amarillo<\/p>\n
No. 146: McAllen<\/p>\n
No. 149: El Paso<\/p>\n
No. 184: Waco<\/p>\n
No. 185: Brownsville<\/p>\n
No. 189: Wichita Falls<\/p>\n
No. 192: Irving<\/p>\n
No. 193: Laredo<\/p>\n
No. 205: Carrollton<\/p>\n
No. 212: Richardson<\/p>\n
No. 214: Arlington<\/p>\n
No. 217: Huntsville<\/p>\n
No. 222: McKinney<\/p>\n
No. 223: Pasadena<\/p>\n
No. 237: Grand Prairie<\/p>\n
No. 250: Edinburg<\/p>\n
No. 255: Tyler<\/p>\n
No. 261: Nacogdoches<\/p>\n
No. 265: Pearland<\/p>\n
No. 280: San Angelo<\/p>\n
No. 287: Garland<\/p>\n
No. 299: Abilene<\/p>\n
No. 307: Beaumont<\/p>\n
No. 348: Mesquite<\/p>\n
Top 5 college towns in America, 2026<\/p>\n
Austin, Texas
\nAnn Arbor, Mich.
\nOrlando, Fla.
\nTampa, Fla.
\nRaleigh, N.C.<\/p>\n
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Top Texas college towns by size, 2026<\/p>\n
In the same study, WalletHub divided the college towns by size: 68 were considered “large cities” with populations over 300,000; 154 were “midsize cities” with populations between 125,000 and 300,000; and 193\u00a0were “small cities” with fewer than 125,000 people. The data gathered was limited to the city proper and excluded cities in the surrounding metro area.<\/p>\n
No. 1:\u00a0Austin<\/p>\n
No. 21:\u00a0San Antonio<\/p>\n
No. 22:\u00a0Houston<\/p>\n
No. 27:\u00a0Fort Worth<\/p>\n
No. 35:\u00a0Corpus Christi<\/p>\n
No. 43:\u00a0Dallas<\/p>\n
No. 46:\u00a0El Paso<\/p>\n
No. 57:\u00a0Arlington<\/p>\n
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No. 24:\u00a0Plano<\/p>\n
No. 29:\u00a0Denton<\/p>\n
No. 31:\u00a0Lubbock<\/p>\n
No. 34: Killeen (tied with Norman, Okla.)
\nNo. 41:\u00a0Amarillo<\/p>\n
No. 43:\u00a0McAllen<\/p>\n
No. 54:\u00a0Waco<\/p>\n
No. 55:\u00a0Brownsville<\/p>\n
No. 59:\u00a0Irving<\/p>\n
No. 60:\u00a0Laredo<\/p>\n
No. 64:\u00a0Carrollton<\/p>\n
No. 69:\u00a0McKinney<\/p>\n
No. 70:\u00a0Pasadena<\/p>\n
No. 76:\u00a0Grand Prairie<\/p>\n
No. 87:\u00a0Pearland<\/p>\n
No. 96:\u00a0Garland<\/p>\n
No. 104:\u00a0Abilene<\/p>\n
No. 130:\u00a0Mesquite<\/p>\n
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No. 16:\u00a0College Station<\/p>\n
No. 51:\u00a0San Marcos<\/p>\n
No. 53:\u00a0Bryan<\/p>\n
No. 79:\u00a0Wichita Falls<\/p>\n
No. 90:\u00a0Richardson<\/p>\n
No. 92:\u00a0Huntsville<\/p>\n
No. 109:\u00a0Edinburg<\/p>\n
No. 112:\u00a0Tyler<\/p>\n
No. 115:\u00a0Nacogdoches<\/p>\n
No. 122:\u00a0San Angelo<\/p>\n
No. 133:\u00a0Beaumont<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin was recently dubbed the top college town in America by WalletHub. Austin American Statesman College Station, San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,863,10499,102,163,116,289,56,82,27,511],"class_list":["post-15874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-colleges-universities","tag-dallas","tag-education","tag-fort-worth","tag-higher-education","tag-houston","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-wallethub"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}