The students: Nine months you'll never forget

They come out at night, they never leave you alone, and they're on their way

By MarK Leccese, Globe Correspondent, 8/24/2003

Here they come, the 201,000 students who attend colleges within 10 miles of Boston -- by rental truck, by car, by train, and by plane, from Nutley and Needles and Natchez, from Nairobi and Nice and Newington.

They'll take up parking spaces and pack the restaurants and movie theaters.

They'll stand in the doorways and aisles on the T, bearing back-packs the size of Volkswagens, blocking everyone's way.

They'll bellow and howl outside your bedroom window, for no reason at all, in the middle of the night.

Bostonians may find it hard to associate that frat boy throwing up in the gutter at 2 a.m. with a powerful economic engine.

But without that frat boy, his estimated 201,000 fellow students, and the schools they attend, Boston might very well be what Philly Parisi of "The Sopranos" called it shortly before his untimely demise: "Scranton with clams."

(The 201,000 estimate, by the way, comes from the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.)

In Boston alone, the Boston Redevelopment Authority estimates, each student in Boston spends about $5,720 each year at local businesses.

"The students," says Geoff Lewis, the BRA's policy manager, "spend their money at, say, Anna's Taqueria, and Anna's spends much of that money on supplies -- it trickles down through the economy." Higher education is one of the three largest private employers in the city of Boston, behind only medicine and a category encompassing insurance, real estate and financial services. The 36 colleges and universities in the city employ more than 24,000 local residents. Four of Boston's top 15 private employers are universities: Boston University, Harvard's graduate schools, Boston College, and Northeastern University. "I don't say, `Here come those damn students,' " said Mayor Thomas Menino. "I say, `Hurrah! The students are back.' "

It should surprise no one that, according to the Census, Boston has more students per capita -- about 135,000 attending classes within the city limits -- than any other city in the United States.

In North America, only Montreal has a greater concentration of college students.

Lewis estimates the operating budgets the colleges and the spending of their students add up to "just shy of $5 billion in Boston" -- and about $8 billion statewide.

The economic impact of the alumni of Boston's colleges and universities is incalculable.

The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, a trade and lobbying group, estimates that nearly a third of the graduates of Boston's eight major research universities live, work, and start businesses in the Boston area.

"That's what makes the city work -- the brainpower that comes to school here and stays here to work," said Menino.

And the mix of young people who are new to Boston living side by side with natives and longtime residents "is what makes Boston unique. We have the old and the new," Menino said.

Living in the next building, or the next apartment, from students is not always a neighborly experience.

"Noise is an issue, particularly at the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year, when it's warm and folks are outside," said Bob Van Meter, executive director of the Allston Brighton Community Development Corp. "Most undergraduates are not bound by the same schedule working people are, and they don't have kids they're trying to put to bed at 9 or 10 at night.

"People who are 18 or 19 or 20 don't necessarily think about all that stuff," Van Meter said. "They're not mean, but they're in a new situation. Some of them think a neighborhood is a student neighborhood and they don't think about the people living there who aren't students -- they live as if the neighborhood were an extension of the campus."

Van Meter's biggest concern, and the city's biggest concern, about the large number of students living off-campus in Boston is the upward pressure the students put on rents.

"They do have an impact on the housing market," said Lewis of the BRA. "We don't know precisely the impact in rents, since there are many factors that affect rents."

"The fundamental problem," Van Meter said, "is competition for scarce housing. Students are certainly not the only part of the housing market, but students are often willing to pay more for less housing than low- and moderate-income families who are competing for housing."

Menino doesn't put all the blame on the students. He blames landlords.

"I don't see the students as being the problem," the mayor said. "I see landlords who are gouging the students on rents to live in unsafe conditions as the problem."

"It's not only landlords who are gouging the students," said Van Meter. "It's the landlords who are paving over front yards so six cars can be parked there, and that kind of thing affects the quality of life on the street."

A 2001 survey by the Boston Redevelopment Authority of the 19 colleges and universities in the city with dormitories found an "unmet demand" for about 12,000 dormitory beds -- which, the BRA estimated, accounts for a student demand for up to 4,500 apartments "that could be freed up for families" with more dormitory construction.

"We've got 2,062 dormitory spaces under construction in Boston right now," Lewis said. "We calculate four students for each apartment, so the new construction should free up more than 500 apartments. It's like building a 500-unit apartment building."

So Bostonians can thank that drunken frat boy for helping to bolster the Boston economy and blame him for contributing to rising rents and unwanted noise.

Just don't stand too close when he's had too much to drink.