Also, the economy in college towns is very seasonal, plus if they are located in geographies with harsh weather, retail businesses are going to see a lot of peaks and troughs in foot traffic. Not all businesses are equipped to handle this type of fluctuation. Inventory forecasting becomes really hard, and business risks are increased.

Restaurants that serve cheap-eats (e.g. Chinese restaurants) tend to be ok since they have low overheads and are designed to handle peaking volumes easily (stir fries are easy, and most are family owned). But shoe, book retailers etc. will suffer in the summer when school's out, and in the winter when nobody's out and about.