I suspect a fair portion of the private sector jobs in college towns are supported by the taxpayers in some way or another due to state and federal money flowing in.
I can only think of one relative of mine living in a college town who isn’t employed by the school and that one relative works for the city of Kalamazoo.
1 cousin (and her “partner”) in Minneapolis works for the college there. 1 cousin and her husband both work for a college in Chicago. 2 cousins and 1 wife work for Western Michigan University, My uncle works for UofM in Ann Arbor and my aunt retired from there.
Another issue is the tech start ups that settle around college towns and the subsidies they get.
I figger the reason Lansing isn’t on the list is because of the spat they have with their eastern neighbors. Stuck up university types v. blue-collar types.