When it comes to how large cities rank for college students, eight isn't too bad.That's how Tampa ranked among the country's largest cities, at least when it came to how attractive the city is for current and college-bound students, according to a recent WalletHub study.
The analysis looked at various qualities of hundreds of U.S. cities, qualities pertaining to cost of living, crime, the number of cafes and even things like the cost of gym memberships, pizza and burgers as factors that lend themselves to quality of life for students.
Factors like how oriented toward youth an area is and the rate of "brain drain" also factored in.
The study used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Numbeo and the U.S. Department of Housing in calculating these.
Find the rankings here.
When city size is not factored in, Tampa ranks 30th.
We're guessing proximity to Ybor had something to do with the city's high rank among cities with over 300,000 people.
Tampa trails behind Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Columbus and St. Louis.
Ranking relatively high among cities of similar size must be a boon for the city, University of South Florida, University of Tampa and Hillsborough Community College officials, though. Earlier Tuesday, USF broke ground on a new medical school that will be located in what is now the Channelside area.
Across the bay, St. Petersburg didn't fare so well. For midsize cities, it ranked 53rd, and 158th overall. As one might imagine, Gainesville ranked first among midsize cities. Orlando and Tallahassee ranked 6th and 7th among cities of similar size.