USA Today published a piece today on AIER's 2009-10 College Destinations Index (CDI):

High school students beginning the college search have yet another resource at hand as they narrow their choices: a college destinations index that aims to quantify the whole off-campus experience.

And the index finds that New York City, San Jose, Boulder, Colo., and Ithaca, N.Y., are some of the top destinations for college students.

"Your college years are shaped by the classes, the professors and the campus, but they're also shaped by the location of the school," says Kerry Lynch, senior economist for the American Institute for Economic Research, an independent research organization in Great Barrington, Mass.

In addition, the Daily News for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities had this to say:

American Institute for Economic Research, an independent research organization, crunched data on more than 360 metropolitan areas to come up with the top 75 destinations. The cities are ranked in four categories, organized by population. The index finds that New York City, San Jose, Boulder, Colo., and Ithaca, N.Y., are some of the top destinations for college students.

The CDI has also been mentioned in the Washington Business Journal, EDNews.org, WCAV, Boston Business Journal, Baltimore Business Journal, Sacramento Business Journal, Atlanta Business Chronicle, WINA (Charlottesville, VA), WHCU (Ithaca, NY), KLBJ (Austin, TX), WRVA (Richmond, VA), Prairie Public Radio, KDWN (Las Vegas, NV), WLRN (Miami, FL), Columbia Daily Tribune Blog, Portland (OR) Business Journal, Austin Business Journal, Florida Business Journal, and The Washington Post:

The District and its suburbs are home to at least 140,000 college students, according to the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area; one in eight D.C. residents attends college.

The American Institute for Economic Research is an independent, nonprofit economic research group based in Massachusetts and formerly affiliated with MIT."We are a college destination," said John Childers, president of the consortium. "People are attracted in sort of a self-perpetuating cycle."

Researchers said Washington ranks particularly high on the index for concentration of college-age students, with 81 students per 1,000 population in the region. Boston has a higher concentration of college students, 83 per 1,000 population; New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles (ranked sixth overall) have lower concentrations.

The College Destinations Index is available free to our members in our archive or can be downloaded for free from our bookstore. Print copies are available for $2 each.