College Station

[updated september 2024]

SO, roomiematch.com's College Station roommate rundown:

College Station is a college town.

No really, it's a college town even more than most college towns that cheerfully take that label. A dominant majority of everyone living here has some important connection to the flagship campus of Texas A&M University.

They're happy Aggies! Because this is Aggieland! So you better show your Aggie Spirit!

No really, you better. But this is not a bad thing?

College Station is like a densely populated walkable suburb with a lot of nice parks. "Like" a suburb even though it's not really a suburb of anything at all? It's not actually close enough to anything other than Texas A&M to qualify as adjacent or meaningfully nearby?

But the vibe is like a suburb that's much more walkable than most, extra especially to and from campus and all those nice parks. Take care during a summer heatwave, but otherwise you're free to roam!

College Station is also a college town in that the cost of living and the average age of your roommates and your neighbors and your neighbors' roommates will likely be lower than average.

(Because they have a strong tendency to be college students. Because this is a college town.)

The rest of the College Station roommate lowdown:

• College Station and Bryan make up the metro with a population of about 275,000 most often referred to as just "College Station"
• known as "Aggieland," because it's home to the flagship campus of Texas A&M University System
• College Station is halfway between Dallas and Houston, about 60 miles east of Austin
• low cost of living overall
• winters are mild, but summer heat is intense, most months feature frequent thunderstorms
• You and your roommates should keep in mind that parking is free throughout most of College Station, except campus OR sometimes around campus on game days too, but NEVER park facing traffic.

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience College Station's:

• Sam Houston National Forest: About 30 miles east
• Northgate: Large area north of the university encompassing many restaurants, bars, churches, and other live music venues and apartments for the students living near them. Many well-known musicians, especially several associated with Texas country music have been performing in this area for decades . . . maybe even Lyle Lovett!

Here's the city of College Station's official .gov for new residents, including pets, recycling, and neighborhoods.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.


7.   From hoodmaps.com: a collaborative map where residents use tags describing social situations you're likely to find. Other users can thumb up or down, so the largest tags have been thumbed up the most.