Colton’s Corner: Why San Marcos is the best college town in Texas

If you ask anyone in Texas where the best “College Town” is, 95% percent of the time people will choose San Marcos.

In fact if you follow the social media feeds recently, you would have seen that San Marcos was voted number No. 1 as the Best College Town in Texas by Texas Football Life for the second year in a row beating out College Station, Lubbock, Denton, Nacogdoches, Huntsville and Stephenville.

My question is why?

What makes San Marcos THE best college town in Texas and why does it beat out towns like Lubbock, College Station to name a few.

To answer that, we must determine what a college town actually is.

The definition of a college town is the name itself where a town or a city is dominated by the population of the university.

This means cities such as Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, El Paso and San Antonio do not qualify as a typical college town with populations swelling over 600,000 to even a million.

San Marcos by that very definition fits that bill with Texas State University with just a population of over 67,000 according to the last Population Census back in 2020 and the university having over 38,000 students enrolled according to the Texas State University System.

With San Marcos fitting the definition of a college town down to a tee, what separates San Marcos from the others such as College Station?

As someone who has been to San Marcos and College Station during college, I can tell you hands down that San Marcos is a better college town and is what a college town truly is.

One of the biggest problems with College Station is the size.

Texas A&M is so huge that College Station more or less turns into more of a city than a town sprawling across the city limits.

Though Texas State is big in a sense being the fourth most attended school in the state, both the school and San Marcos are still small enough to where there is a smidgen of community between the students. Then of course Texas State has their side of town and San Marcos has theirs.

But what separates San Marcos from College Station is this. Texas A&M defines what College Station is while San Marcos defines Texas State.

From the river that flows through, the nightlife of the Square that is a walk away from campus, the local restaurants and the overall vibes, San Marcos beats College Station in every category, and that is also why it beats every other college town in the state of Texas.

Where else does a university have a river, fed by spring water turning it super clear and full year around, run through campus to the point where the said school builds a park for their students to enjoy it?

Where else does a bar district just a short walk away from campus to enjoy a night out with fellow college students?

Why are there so many alumni that graduated from Southwest Texas or Texas State that opt to plant their roots here in San Marcos?

It’s because of San Marcos and not the university, which is what a college town should always strive for.

San Marcos has set the bar for what a college town should be, and to be honest is the definition of what a college town is.

In the end, nothing beats San Marcos.

cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc