This Week on Upstater: Educate Yourself About These College Towns in the Hudson Valley & Catskills

  |  January 2, 2017
Bard's Fisher Center via Wikipedia Commons.

Bard’s Fisher Center via Wikipedia Commons

Colleges in the Hudson Valley and Catskills of New York tend to run a little on the small side, and so, too, do the towns in which they reside. Instead of a sprawling, city-sized campus like, say, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the network of SUNY schools is spread out into 64 enclaves of learning institutions, research facilities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, etc. Around these schools, communities gather, like New Paltz, bursting at the seams with creativity and youthful energy.

And then there are college towns like Tivoli, situated right next door to Bard College in Dutchess County. The low-key village lacks frat and sorority houses emblazoned with Greek letters and, instead, offers fresh baked bread early in the morning and excellent sushi. While schools like SUNY New Paltz do, in fact, have a Greek system, you won’t be tripping all over it around every corner in the village of New Paltz.

tivoli-green-dot-org

Tivoli village via TivoliGreen.org

Poughkeepsie is home to Vassar College, considered one of the best colleges in the state, as well as Marist College. But rarely do people discuss Poughkeepsie as a college town, given its less-than-sterling reputation. And to that, we say, why not? There are some good places to eat around Vassar, Vassar itself offers live music and performance, and there are some beautiful old homes in the area worth investigating.

This week on Upstater, we’ll be visiting the college towns of the Hudson Valley and Catskills, and we’ll be diving into the real estate listings to see what’s in the market. Colleges towns on our list include: New Paltz, Tivoli, Poughkeepsie, Delhi, Red Hook, Oneonta, and Highland Falls (home of West Point in Orange County). We’ll even head up to Troy, where RPI is located, because we’re dying to look at those listings, too.

Stay tuned for continuing ed…

 

About Kandy Harris

Kandy is a writer and musician/music teacher living in Saugerties, NY.

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