Is Brooklyn America’s Next Great College Town?
Democratic politician
Downtown Brooklyn’s emergence as a college town is not a recent occurrence. For decades, Long Island University, St. Francis College, New York City College of Technology, Brooklyn Law School, and Polytechnic University, which has now merged with NYU, have each called the Downtown Brooklyn area home and offered hundreds of degree and certificate bearing programs.
Post-secondary education has essentially become a requirement for individuals to obtain quality employment. As a major higher education hub, Downtown Brooklyn is experiencing an exciting new round of investment that will expand opportunity and better connect students to growth areas in the Brooklyn economy. What makes Downtown Brooklyn special is the deep and growing integration between higher educational degree programs and the Brooklyn private sector. The recipient of an associate degree at City Tech in computer information systems or a master’s degree in integrated digital media from the new NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress is being prepared to help grow a Brooklyn business—or start one! Even if Brooklyn no longer remains the leading destination for liberal arts graduates from all around the county, our higher educational institutions in Downtown Brooklyn will continue to generate talented, dynamic young people to push our economy and borough forward.
Brooklyn Borough President
As you say, with its eight colleges and universities and more than 57,000 students, Downtown Brooklyn has more students than Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many of our students commute, so we are always striving to create a greater sense of campus life in Downtown Brooklyn, which is strategically located near the New York City finance, advertising, technology and service industries. As we learned from the creation of the Metro Tech complex, it’s important that we continually invest in redevelopment in order to grow our college community. The public and private development already underway and planned in Downtown Brooklyn—retail stores, hundreds of new hotel rooms, residential and dormitory construction, affordable housing, the BAM Cultural District, Barclays Center, our new Brooklyn Bridge Park and the proposed NYU/Poly Center for Urban Science and Progress—are essential to the process of branding Brooklyn as College Town, U.S.A.
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
Downtown Brooklyn is New York City’s college town. With 57,000 students from 11 colleges and universities attending school in the area, there is tremendous opportunity to build relationships between students and the rest of the community, and to ensure that the growth of those institutions enriches the Downtown experience.
Many forces are driving the growth of these institutions in the area. We enjoy unparalleled public transportation access thanks to 13 subway lines and 15 bus lines that come through the area. We have seen significant public investment in the area since 2004 to the tune of over $300 million in public realm improvements, including parks, plazas, and streetscapes. The private sector responded to these improvements with over $3.5 billion dollars in private investment leading to the creation of nearly 8 million square feet of new space, including more retail, restaurants, entertainment options and housing for students in the area. But I think most important to the continued academic growth in the area is the re-positioning of Downtown Brooklyn as a center for innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship that we are seeing now, that is encouraging further academic investment in the area like NYU’s plans for the Center for Urban Science and Progress in the dilapidated former MTA headquarters at 370 Jay Street.