Longtime residents speak on university's influence

By Paul Barney

The presence of a university in a town brings in thousands of students that are not just members of the school community, but also to the city’s community as a whole. But what is a college town like when students are away on holidays or summer vacation? What impact does a university have on a city? Or what would a college town look like if that college didn’t exist at all?

Ben Quaintance and Nic Baldwin have answers for that. The two are students at Bowling Green State University and have lived in Bowling Green their entire lives. They know firsthand how important BGSU is to the city of Bowling Green as they have seen the campus and surrounding area heavily populated during the school year, but see that same population cut in half during school breaks. I sat down with each of them to get the scoop.

PB: What effect does BGSU have on the city of Bowling Green?

BQ: A good portion of the town is employed by BG. Without the university it would be a farm town. The school has brought a nice diversity of people.

NB: The biggest effects are the size and the employment. The job market would look completely different if the university weren’t here at all.

PB: What was it like growing up in a college town?

BQ: There’s two different parts. I only became exposed to BGSU when I came to school here.

NB: The way I always look at it, and I did even when I was younger and I do now, the university really is almost its own entity. It’s like two towns within the same city, and then therefore the two towns interact with each other in different ways. Students end up having to interact with the economic scene; they support the bars and the pizza joints. Meanwhile, the university supports the rest of the town because it’s the one employing most of the town. But even with that, growing up you didn’t exactly come to campus to hangout or anything. The campus is not like some city universities where it’s spread throughout town, it really is in one, central location. It really has just been kind of separate.

PB: What’s Bowling Green like during the holidays and summer vacation when all the students aren’t here?

BQ: During summer it’s a lot quieter. It’s definitely noticeable that there are less people.

NB: Dead. The population of the city cuts in half pretty much every summer. It’s really strange because I’ll go out and places just aren’t as busy. Even going to Meijer or driving around campus and no one is here. There’s no one to go out with so I kind of just stay at home. I always feel lonelier in the summer, which is funny because I’m from here, but I feel lonelier because everyone I know is gone.

PB: If BGSU didn’t exist, what impact do you think that would have on the city of Bowling Green?

BQ: The city wouldn’t have as much money coming in. It wouldn’t be as presentable.

NB: The town would be smaller as a whole. I think there would be less people here because there would be less work. The majority of the food establishments are here to support students. I think we would be much more [of a] manufacturing [town].