Sep 1, 2020 - Health
Coronavirus hits college town businesses
- Erica Pandey, author of Axios Finish Line
Harvard Square in Cambridge. Photo: Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Small businesses and workers in college towns are hurting as the pandemic pushes universities to go online.
The big picture: Hundreds of local economies across the country rely on the annual influx of students and professors to stay afloat.
Businesses in college towns are 24% more likely to shutter permanently than their counterparts in other towns, per new Yelp data.
Among the hardest-hit places...
- College Park, Maryland (University of Maryland), saw 4.4% of businesses close for good.
- Berkeley, California (University of California, Berkeley), 4.2%.
- Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard and MIT), 3.8%.
Go deeper: College reopening plans are crumbling