Champaign is also a major college town with a large number of people who are 18 years or older and attending college. As is often the case in college towns, the many students that live in Champaign have a strong influence on the local culture and entertainment scene, which may seem dormant by comparison in the summer months when much of the student population is away. In the fall, the return of students has a reinvigorating effect on the community. Because colleges are lasting institutions, they have a stabilizing effect on the economy by providing direct local benefits such as jobs for faculty and staff and spending by students. Champaign’s economy is one such example of this.
Not only is Champaign a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Champaign is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Champaign a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Champaign spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 16.66 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
A lot of people in Champaign take the bus for their daily commute. For the size of the city, the number of people who use public transportation is quite high. For many people in Champaign, this fills their need for low-cost transportation.
If knowledge is power, Champaign is a pretty powerful place. 53.61% of the adults in Champaign have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.
The per capita income in Champaign in 2022 was $35,886, which is middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $143,544 for a family of four. However, Champaign contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Champaign is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Champaign home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Champaign residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Champaign include German, Irish, English, Polish, and Italian.
Champaign also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 16.95%.
The most common language spoken in Champaign is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.
