Downtown Brooklyn: New York City’s College Town
The arrival of September and the shortening of long summer days means that it is that time of year again: back-to-school season. In Downtown Brooklyn, that translates to 57,000 college students descending upon the area to attend one of the 11 institutions that call the neighborhood home. 57,000. That’s more college students than in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
However, while many in the business community have long acknowledged Downtown Brooklyn to be New York City’s college town, we haven’t done a great job of engaging with these students – and with their collective $1.2 billion in spending power – according to statistics from re:fuel’s 11th Annual College Explorer survey, which sets individual spending power at approximately $21,000 per student. We also haven’t done very well at encouraging these colleges, universities, and yeshivas to work together on shared issues.
That’s why the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) has made it a key priority this year to raise the area’s profile as a College Town and stress the tremendous assets that local educational institutions are when promoting the area for commercial attraction.