I’m not sure I buy the claim that it is “much higher” than other places. Not all that far from us, Columbia and Lawrence both have larger schools and smaller city populations, so by definition, there would be an even higher proportion of college students there.

We would also need to check if the statistics a) count college students at all (since they are not typically permanent residents of the cities where they attend college) and b) count college students as living alone (since they often live in shared dorms or shared apartments).