It depends on the college. In my experience one had a vibrant cultural meetin grounds of myraid intersts and approaches where you see things like a small but visible minority of unicyclists (this is not an absurd example for the generic, a real thing).

While the other was a generic and bland sadness that suck the life out of the room and "binge drinking" is the closest form to a local culture and even things which should be a source of culture like the arts are just another box to be checked on somebody's list for posturing's sake.

Was it religious school which went secular in practice or offically? I know some who suspect that the number one reason for that blandness is former religious school that lost the fundamentalist character which drove out the heterodox and was then left with a despeciated monocultural void.

I think for better or for worse what actually drives the selection of people determines the resulting culture and diversity.

No, not religious at all. And I would not call it bland either, as I told I liked it.

But pretty much everyone around you was, well, college student of roughly same age. And plus everyone was focused on math, computer science or something similar. The university itself had other fields of study, obviously, but they had own building so practically you rarely really interacted with each other.

The city it was in obviously had sports clubs, entertainment and whatnot where you could meet non-college students or people of different age or people who study something different. You was not forced to close yourself into some kind university bubble.

But university itself necessary collects similar people at one place. Because everyone there has to be college student and has similar choice of study.