It's fun. Beautiful. Safe. Cool. Diverse. Busy. Surprising.

Place any town on the shores of Lake Champlain and surround it with mountains and you’d have a special place to go to college.

Add the shops, businesses, restaurants and energy that you find in downtown Burlington and you have a place that Travel & Leisure Magazine just named the top college town in America. Burlington is known as one of the healthiest, happiest and most appealing cities in the whole country (one that draws 14,000 college students a year).

Live music, great food from around the world, the beaches of Lake Champlain, the Community Boathouse, the seven-mile bike path, internship-friendly companies like IBM, GE Medical, Burton Snowboards, Dealer.com and Ben and Jerry’s, and quick access to top ski areas like Sugarbush and Stowe are just part of our location’s appeal.

Check out our list of 20 Reasons Burlington, Vermont is the Best College Town 

Vermont is green, in more ways than one. The Green Mountains surround campus, providing spectacular views of Camel’s Hump and Vermont’s highest peak, Mount Mansfield. The Adirondacks of New York are just across the lake.

We care about the environment. On campus, we recycle, we compost, we refill our water bottles, we eat local and shop local. We’re a Fair Trade institution and we have our own organic garden and farm stand during the growing season.

Right outside of campus are sites for hiking, rock climbing, river and lake kayaking, and fly fishing. Our Adventure Sports Center will get you into the great outdoors in ways you might never have imagined (ice climbing, perhaps?).

People come from around the world to visit our part of Vermont. St. Mike’s students are lucky enough to make this place their college home.