America's 20 Most Economically Vibrant College Towns

College towns are no longer just sleepy hamlets where learning, sports, conversation, and partying prevail. The rise of the idea-driven, human capital powered knowledge economy has transformed many of them into economic powerhouses. Stanford University in Palo Alto and MIT in Cambridge, Mass. helped power the high-tech startup revolution. And it’s no coincidence that high tech clusters have sprouted around Austin, Texas and North Carolina’s Research Triangle.

And college towns have proven remarkably resilient over the course of the economic crisis. With their economies bolstered by universities, high levels of state funding, and jobs markets with high concentrations of “meds and eds,” the unemployment rates in college towns from Boulder to Austin, Ann Arbor to Madison have remained far below the national average.