Champaign is a nice balance between life in a moderately big city and the interesting diversions and culture that come from having a big college student population. The thousands of students who arrive on campus every fall will find that Champaign has plenty of amenities and opportunities for them, while residents of Champaign enjoy the lectures, music, art, and economic trickle-down that colleges typically provide. "Town and Gown" complement each other in Champaign.
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 16.37 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Champaign has a lot of people who ride the bus to and from work. In fact, for its size, Champaign has quite a high level of public transit users. Champaign’s need for inexpensive transportation options for its citizens is quite high.
Do you have a 4-year college degree or graduate degree? If so, you may feel right at home in Champaign. 52.73% of adults here have a 4-year degree or graduate degree, whereas the national average for all cities and towns is just 21.84%.
The per capita income in Champaign in 2022 was $36,223, which is middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $144,892 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, Italian, and Polish.
Champaign also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 16.90%.
The most common language spoken in Champaign is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.
