8 Great College Towns Perfect for Retirees

IF I HAD TO offer just one piece of retirement-planning advice, it would be: Don't live in fear. Yes, every day seems to bring new headlines about how Americans are woefully unprepared to stop working. And sure, there probably are things you should be doing to invest in your own future that you haven't gotten around to just yet. But those are reasons for making a financial plan and sticking to it with confidence, not for spending your senior years in high anxiety. To paraphrase Animal House's Dean Wormer, overworked, old and stressed out is no way to go through life.

Nowhere is it more important to stay positive than in choosing a place to live in retirement. When we think about moving, all too often we focus on avoiding things we don't like — particularly, bad weather and taxes — rather than on the opportunities we want to pursue in the next phase of our lives. Nobody cares too much for shoveling snow or paying the state, but simply picking up and dropping down stakes at the next open golf course or tax-sheltered cactus is a recipe for long-term boredom and isolation.

That's why I tell anyone considering relocation in retirement to look at college towns. Retirement is your chance to finally make it all the way through a Thomas Pynchon book or study Italian or learn why bridges don't fall down, and schools provide opportunities to stay intellectually active. And this time around, you can enter a classroom on your own terms, rather than taking required classes and sweating through final exams. Many schools will allow seniors to audit courses or, if you do want academic credit, to enroll in classes at a discount. And nearly 500 colleges across the country, from Harvard to Santa Rosa Junior College, now have educational programs designed specifically for seniors.

Beyond academics, college towns are typically vibrant communities. Art galleries, theater troupes, music groups and sports teams all stage events on and around campuses. Community-service activities also are easy to join. And you'll find intergenerational mingling in lots of venues, whether they're coffeehouses or movie houses. More prosaically, college towns usually offer cheap food, relatively inexpensive housing and good transportation. And cities that are home to medical schools and teaching hospitals provide excellent health care, too.

For all these reasons, the number of seniors moving to college towns has been increasing since the mid-1990s and will only accelerate further with the ongoing retirement of baby boomers, for whom college was the kind of shared peak experience that their predecessors found in war. Developers have noticed this trend, and so have colleges — which will face a shortfall of students and revenue once millennials pass through campuses late next decade. Together, they have opened about two dozen retirement communities on or close to U.S. campuses, with many more on the way. Some, called continuing-care communities, offer extensive health care and other services. Lasell College in Newton, Mass., for example, pioneered Lasell Village, a retirement community that opened in 2000 and offers on-site nursing consultations, blood pressure clinics and pharmacy deliveries — and requires residents to pursue 450 hours of study a year. Other communities are simply housing developments near college campuses, such as Veridian Village, which Hampshire College is planning to open in Amherst, Mass., in 2010.

Whether you're interested in a college-linked retirement community or living on your own, it's important to establish the criteria that will matter most to you in a new hometown. For a master list of destinations, check out College Town Life. And you can use the following list for starters. I looked for college towns with outstanding educational, cultural and recreational opportunities; vibrant downtown communities; affordable housing; good access to health care; job growth; low crime rates; and low taxes. No city is at the top in all those categories; there will always be trade-offs involved in selecting your best place to retire. Warning: Comparisons are subjective, and my priorities may not be yours — which is why I'm giving you eight cities and listing them alphabetically, rather than a top-five or top-10 ranking.