Everyone Talks About Retiring to the Beach. Nobody Talks About the College Towns Where Retirees Quietly Come Out Ahead
Coastal retirement gets all the attention, but a quieter option built around university towns rewrites the savings math in ways most retirement calculators never account for.
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Most people who talk about where to retire end up on the coast. Florida ranked first in net adjusted gross income gained through state-to-state moves in IRS migration data for 2022-2023, at $20.6 billion. The less talked-about option is a town built around a university.
College towns typically offer a teaching hospital, lectures and games on the calendar, and a local economy that follows the school year instead of tourist season. Here’s what that choice costs, what it saves, and where it comes up short.
Why the Budget Starts Lower in College-Town States
The Bureau of Economic Analysis cost-of-living index for 2024 sets the national average at 100. Florida came in at 103.414 and Arizona at 100.677. States known for big public universities came in under 100. Ohio was at 92.774, Indiana at 93.329, Tennessee at 91.87, Michigan at 96.217, and Pennsylvania at 97.572.
Coastal housing has also gotten more expensive. Federal Housing Finance Agency data show home prices in Hilton Head rose 63.76% over five years. Charleston rose 61.64% and Wilmington, North Carolina, rose 59.65%. Those figures track how fast prices moved. They measure percentage change in a price index.
Running the Numbers for a Retired Couple
This example uses an $80,000 annual budget for a couple on the Florida coast that covers housing, food, insurance, healthcare, taxes, and a reserve for repairs and replacement cars. Adjusted by the state indexes, the same lifestyle costs about $71,769 in Ohio and $75,481 in Pennsylvania.
A typical older couple collecting Social Security will receive $3,208 a month after the 3.6% cost-of-living raise for 2027. That’s $38,496 a year. After subtracting it from each budget, the portfolio must cover $41,504 in Florida, $33,273 in Ohio, and $36,985 in Pennsylvania. A 4% withdrawal rate is a common planning assumption for a retirement starting in the mid-60s and lasting 30 years.
At that rate, the savings targets come to $1,037,600, $831,825, and $924,625. The gap between Florida and Ohio is $205,775. Retiring before 65 means planning on a lower withdrawal rate and paying for marketplace health insurance until Medicare starts.
Medicare costs the same no matter where you live. The standard Part B premium is $202.90 a month, or $4,869.60 a year for two people. Higher-income surcharges start once joint income tops $218,000.
How State Tax Rules Change the Math
Income taxes fall outside the index, and that’s where Pennsylvania pulls ahead. The state charges a flat 3.07% income tax. Commonly recognized retirement benefits aren’t taxed if the retiree met the plan’s retirement requirements. Payments from 401(k)s and IRAs are tax-exempt. Ohio leaves Social Security alone. It taxes other nonbusiness income above $26,050 at 2.75%, plus a base amount set in state law. So the Ohio couple pulling $33,273 from an IRA owes some state tax, while the Pennsylvania couple pulling more owes none. Pennsylvania’s bill tends to show up in property and school taxes instead, and those vary by school district.
Inflation hits retirees a little differently, too. The government’s research price index for Americans 62 and older reached 368.066 in September 2026, its highest reading in the series. It weights housing and medical care more heavily, while Social Security follows a different index, so benefits can fall behind as those costs rise.
What Campus Life Adds and What It Takes Away
Ohio residents 60 and older can sit in on courses at Ohio State on a space-available, instructor-permission, audit- and tuition-free basis. They may still have to pay for books. Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is a large, public, urban academic medical center. That means the hospital is connected to a medical school.
Living near a campus comes with trade-offs, including students bidding up rents nearby. Game days bring crowds and traffic. Some college towns are small and far from a major airport, and housing a few miles from campus can cost less than housing next to it.
What It Actually Takes
For an average Social Security couple, the college-town version of this retirement works with about $830,000 to $925,000 saved. The coastal version needs about $1.04 million. The plan uses a 4% first-year withdrawal that grows with inflation, from a balanced mix of stock index funds and a Treasury ladder. A mix like that would need to earn a steady average return over time.
Delaying Social Security increases the monthly check and shrinks the gap the portfolio has to fill. State tax rules on retirement accounts can boost the savings or erase them, depending on the state. Classes, traffic and rental competition are at their busiest on weekdays in the middle of the semester.
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David Beren has been a Flywheel Publishing contributor since 2022. Writing for 24/7 Wall St. since 2023, David loves to write about topics of all shapes and sizes. As a technology expert, David focuses heavily on consumer electronics brands, automobiles, and general technology. He has previously written for LifeWire, formerly About.com. As a part-time freelance writer, David’s “day job” has been working on and leading social media for multiple Fortune 100 brands. David loves the flexibility of this field and its ability to reach customers exactly where they like to spend their time. Additionally, David previously published his own blog, TmoNews.com, which reached 3 million readers in its first year. In addition to freelance and social media work, David loves to spend time with his family and children and relive the glory days of video game consoles by playing any retro game console he can get his hands on.
