re: Which SEC town offers the best quality of life?

Athens is a great place for any stage of life... My advice is to live just outside of the city, and you will get much cheaper housing, and better schools.

IDK man, Oconee has high taxes and the houses are much more expensive (save 5 points, normaltown, boulevard)

Greenville SC, in the western part of the state, would be a nice choice for SEC fans, particularly SC, UGA, and TN.

Nice tree lined downtown area with numerous restaurants/bars and a massive floating pedestrian waterfall over a quaint waterfall. It is near the mountains and 3 pristine Lake Tahoes.

Clemson is 45 minutes away.

the beaches around Charleston are about 3.5 hours away

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I would hate to raise kids in BR.

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That's why you raise kids in Prairieville, Denham, St Amant, Geismar, Gonzales, etc. you big dummy.

True, but you could do Madison or Barrow and be right beside Athens

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Very, very, very few that work at those corporations make six figures or even close to six figures.

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Hold up. "Very very very few"? That's not really true. Lots of folks working for all three companies make great money. Sure, there are tons of jobs in the $40-65k range. There are people doing entry-level data entry type stuff who make around $35k. I know a couple of them. They stare at computers all day, punching in numbers. It sucks, but these guys kind of suck at life.

The Walmart corporate trajectory for a lot of people around here is this: Start out at Walmart as a buyer's assistant, make $40-50k. Learn the system, then get hired by a company who sells to Walmart. That is the end game for people who go that route. Selling a single product in a single category to Walmart, in the U.S., Europe, Asia, etc is where people bank bigtime.

I know a couple here, the guy doesn't even have a college degree. He is about 33, pulls in $200k plus per year, and gets bonuses in the $40-60k range every year. He manages one product. He went that route. No connections, nothing. Just a charismatic good looking guy who ate crap for a few years.

That is where the big bucks are around here; working vendor-side and servicing the giant.

If you have a law degree and can get into the real estate side of Walmart, there is fantastic money to be made there. I have a friend who plans to retire at 42 who is doing that right now.

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LINK

There are ratings for everything. Here is someone's opinion on "10 Best College Towns". The SEC did pretty good again.

3 - Gainesville.
4 - Columbia, MO.
5 - Lexington.
9 - Fayetteville.
10 - College Station (I've been there and don't get this one???).

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Interesting list because they didn't include Athens, Austin, Charlottesville, Oxford, the trendy ones seems like every lists has

Columbia is too high in all of those.

Tuscaloosa is a college town. Birmingham is 40 minutes away. There's your answer.