The median home-sale price in Santa Barbara, the most expensive college town in the U.S., is almost $2 million.
When it comes to housing, the most expensive college town in the U.S. is Santa Barbara, CA, home to a University of California campus with about 26,000 students. Santa Barbara’s median home-sale price is nearly $2 million, more than double the next-most expensive college town.
Second-place Boca Raton, FL, home to Florida Atlantic University and its 30,000-plus students, has a median home-sale price of more than $820,000. The two most expensive college towns in the country have one big thing in common: they’re on the beach. That’s enough to push real estate prices into the stratosphere. Homebuying and rental demand from faculty and staff exacerbates already high prices.
Next comes Flagstaff, AZ, where Northern Arizona University is located. It has a median home-sale price of just under $700,000, with the area’s outdoor lifestyle and proximity to the Grand Canyon pushing up prices.
Two towns in Oregon–Corvallis and Eugene , home to the state’s two biggest universities–are also among the top 10 most expensive college towns. So are two towns in Utah, Orem and Provo.
| Most Expensive College Towns, By Median Home-Sale Price (2025) | |||
| Town | Notable college | Median home-sale price | Median home-sale price, YoY growth |
| Santa Barbara, CA | University of California, Santa Barbara | $1,964,170 | 4% |
| Boca Raton, FL | Florida Atlantic University | $822,701 | 9.3% |
| Flagstaff, AZ | Northern Arizona University | $695,902 | 6.3% |
| Corvallis, OR | Oregon State University | $568,507 | 2.1% |
| Orem, UT | Utah Valley University | $517,224 | 6.8% |
| Eugene, OR | University of Oregon | $501,571 | 1.7% |
| Provo, UT | Brigham Young University | $474,745 | 7.9% |
| Ann Arbor, MI | University of Michigan | $464,495 | -3.4% |
| Manchester, NH | University of New Hampshire, Manchester and Southern New Hampshire University | $456,096 | 6.9% |
| Pullman, WA | Washington State University | $452,137 | 0.2% |
This is from a Redfin analysis of college towns in the U.S. To be considered a college town, a city’s population must be at least 10% students at a four-year, accredited university, and it must be at least 30 miles away from a metro area with a population of more than 1 million people. We identified 240 college towns; the top 50 by student population with at least 100 home sales in the relevant period are included in this ranking. Median home-sale prices in this report are a weighted average from January to July.
“Home prices–and, by extension, rent–in some college towns have climbed so high they’re increasingly out of reach for students, faculty and staff,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “In a place like Santa Barbara or Flagstaff, high housing costs may push faculty and staff to live far from campus, and it also deters some professors from teaching there altogether. For students, high costs may mean they have to take on more debt and/or live far from campus.”
Fairweather notes that there are ways to improve affordability for students, faculty and staff. “The best ways to make housing more affordable is to build more homes, update zoning laws to allow more multi-family housing, and invest more in student housing,” she said. “Local homeowners may oppose building a lot of new housing and updated zoning laws because they believe it will stagnate their home’s value. But locals who don’t own a home would likely welcome changes that make housing more affordable for them, too.”
Most students don’t buy homes where they attend college, but expensive home-sale prices push up rent because landlords pass the cost along to their tenants. Additionally, in some places it’s common practic