While some Hillsdale businesses, like Oakley Riverside Deli and Party Store, anticipate the return of Hillsdale College students to end their July slumps, many others barely notice the additional 1,400 residents.
“We love September when students come back,” Jilly Beans Owner Jill Nicols said. “I can’t tell you the exat impact, but it’s definitely significant.”
“My business probably doubles from July to August,” Oakley Owner Sid Halley said.
But these effects are not widespread.
“It’s very important to the city’s economy to have the college,” Hillsdale Economic Development Director Mary Wolfram said. “But summer lake residents provide essentially the same amount of business to Hillsdale as the students do.”
Unlike many college towns, such as University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor, Hillsdale’s most important customers are not necessarily its students.
“I know this may not be what you were expecting to hear, but the college’s impact is tied more to the faculty than students,” Wolfram said.
In addition to the college’s faculty living in town year-round, Wolfram points to other things, like the college fulfilling all of the students’ needs on campus and the lack of college-oriented businesses, to explain why the students do not have as big of an impact as expected.
“All of economic development is like the chicken in the egg. In order for the students to come down here, we need businesses they will frequent, but in order to open those businesses, we need student to come to them,” Wolfram said.
Those few businesses, like Oakley, which do cater to the college crowd see a dramatic increase in revenue when the students return to campus.
The Hillsdale coffee shop owners said their business increases dramatically when the students are in town.
John Spiteri, owner of Checker Records, said his profits increase by 25 percent.
Other businesses, like 8 North and Broadstreet Market have implemented changes to draw in the college crowd.
By selling trendy clothing at affordable prices, 8 North Owner Mindi Meyer has attracted the youth audience and said she sees a 20 percent increase in sales from students.
Broadstreet Market owner Michael Ritter is also trying to increase his college customers by hiring a new marketing expert.
“As a business, we’re always about the customer, so it’s about us finding out what students need and what that demographic would want,” Ritter said.
Since owners have begun tailoring their stores to college students and word of their business has spread, they’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of college students over the last four or five years. Wolfram hopes the economic relationship between the college and town continues to develop so this number steadily rises.
“I would really like to see Hillsdale move from being a town with a college in it to being a college town,” Wolfram said. “Both the college and the town have an interest in being a college town.”
