On December 8, 2022, The New York Times built its Calculator column around a data study we produced with BrokeScholar, a student discount and scholarship site. We called it The Ramen Index. It ranked 100 U.S. cities on how well a college student could live there on a tight budget, and the Times ran our top 25 under its own headline just 15 days after the study went live.
BrokeScholar has since gone offline, so the original study page is no longer live. What remains is the Times coverage and the process behind it. The process is the part you can reuse, so that is what this page covers.
The campaign at a glance
| Client | BrokeScholar (Contender Digital), a student discount and scholarship site |
| Campaign | The Ramen Index: Best Cities for College Students to Thrive on a Budget |
| Study published | November 23, 2022 |
| Coverage | The New York Times, Calculator column: “The Best College Towns for Students on a Budget,” by Michael Kolomatsky, December 8, 2022 |
| Launch to coverage | 15 days |
| Dataset | 100 cities ranked, narrowed from the 1,000 largest U.S. cities by Census population |
| Scoring | Demographics, Affordability, and Fun + Opportunity scores, combined into a final score on a 10-point scale |
| Visuals | A sortable, searchable ranking table and an interactive Datawrapper map of the top 25 |
| Credit in the Times | “Source: BrokeScholar.com” |
| Client rating | 5.0 on Clutch (verified review, August 2023) |
What was The Ramen Index?
The Ramen Index answered one question: where can a college student live well without much money?
Cheap rent alone was never the point. A town with low rent, no jobs and nothing to do is a rough place to be 20. So the index weighed affordability against the things that make student life worth having: people your own age, streets you can walk, and work you can actually get.
The name mattered too. “Best cities for students on a budget” describes a category. “The Ramen Index” is a thing people remember and repeat.
How we built the index, step by step
We built the ranking together with the BrokeScholar team. Here is the order we worked in.
- Start wide. We began with the 1,000 largest U.S. cities by Census population, so no college town got left out by accident.
- Pick factors a student would feel. These included the share of residents in their 20s, walkability, cost of living, unemployment rates and affordability.
- Group the factors into three scores. Demographics, Affordability, and Fun + Opportunity.
- Combine them into one final score. A 10-point scale lets anyone compare any two cities at a glance.
- Publish the top 100 in full. Every city, every sub-score, nothing hidden.
Showing the sub-scores paid off. State College, Pennsylvania scored a perfect 10 on demographics and only 2.48 on affordability, and it still finished third. A reader can see exactly why. So can a skeptical editor. Manhattan, Kansas took first place with a final score of 10.00.
How we visualized the data
We shipped the data in two formats. Each one had a different job.
A sortable, searchable table of all 100 cities
Readers could click any column header to re-rank the list by affordability, demographics or fun, and they could search for their own town. That second feature is underrated. In our experience, people look themselves up first, then share what they find.
An interactive map of the top 25
We built the map in Datawrapper, with pins color-coded from rank 1 to rank 25. It made one pattern obvious in about a second: the winners cluster in the Midwest, not on the coasts.
The map also carried “Get the data,” “Embed” and “Download image” links. A reporter or blogger could check our work, or reuse the visual, without emailing anyone for permission.
How The New York Times used the data
The Times did not screenshot our map. It took the top 25, rebuilt the list in its own chart style under the heading “Low-Cost College Towns,” and credited “Source: BrokeScholar.com.” The article had drawn 152 reader comments when we captured it.
In our experience, that is normal at tier-1 outlets. They want your data in their design. So we treat the dataset itself as the main deliverable, and the charts as the reason a reporter opens it in the first place.
6 things this campaign got right (and you can copy)
These are our own takeaways from this campaign and the dozens we have run since. Treat them as field notes, not laws.
1. It answered a question reporters were already asking
In late 2022, college costs, inflation and student loan forgiveness were already in the news. The Times article opens on exactly those topics. The study gave reporters a fresh, specific angle on a story they were covering anyway.
2. The client had standing to publish it
A student discount site ranking budget college towns makes sense on its face. The same study from a mattress brand would have needed explaining. Pick topics close to what you sell.
3. The name was short and sticky
Three words. One food every former student recognizes. A named index is easier to cite, easier to search for and easier to bring back next year.
4. The method was visible
Sub-scores, source notes and a stated starting list of 1,000 cities. When an editor asks “how did you get this number,” the answer is already on the page.
5. Every city was a local story
A ranking of 100 cities gives readers and local outlets in 100 places a reason to care. National coverage is the prize, and the local angle is what keeps a study travelling.
6. The data was easy to take
Download links, embed codes and a clean table. If a journalist has to ask you for the spreadsheet, you have already lost some of them.
What the client said
“Green Flag Digital did an amazing job catering each campaign to our audience and brand while still making the content interesting and attractive from a promotion standpoint. So much thought and research went into each campaign; you really can tell they care about what they do and helping their clients.”
Mark Mazza, Contender Digital / BrokeScholar (via Clutch)
The verified Clutch review covers September 2022 through August 2023 and gave the engagement 5.0 overall. The Ramen Index was one of several campaigns we produced together in that stretch, and the review notes that the PR work secured multiple high-authority backlinks and lifted site traffic.
Can a smaller brand get into The New York Times?
Fortune 500 companies, hot startups and famous people do not need to pitch the Times. The Times calls them.
The rest of us have to bring something a reporter cannot get anywhere else. For a growing company, that usually means original data in a niche where you have real authority, pitched to the specific journalists who already cover the topic. That is what our digital PR team does all day.
We will be straight about the odds. Across dozens of campaigns, this is the only one The New York Times has covered in full. Nobody can promise you that placement, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What you can control is publishing strong, relevant studies year-round, so your brand keeps earning coverage and authority whether or not the Times bites.
Frequently asked questions
We produced an original data study with the client called The Ramen Index, which ranked 100 U.S. cities for college students on a budget. We published it with a full ranking table and an interactive map, then shared it with journalists who had already shown interest in the topic. The New York Times featured the top 25 cities in its Calculator column on December 8, 2022.
Fifteen days. The study was published on November 23, 2022, and the Times article ran on December 8, 2022. Timelines vary widely from campaign to campaign, and most data studies never reach the Times at all.
An index study ranks places, companies or products by combining several data points into a single score. The Ramen Index combined demographics, affordability, and fun and opportunity factors into a 10-point score for each city. Journalists like the format because one ranking produces many stories: the winner, the loser, the surprise, and the local angle.
The interactive map of the top 25 cities was built in Datawrapper, with color-coded pins and links to get the data, embed the map or download it as an image. The full 100-city ranking ran as a sortable, searchable table so readers could re-rank it themselves.
No. The Times rebuilt the top 25 list in its own chart style and credited BrokeScholar.com as the source. In our experience that is common at large outlets, which is why we treat a clean, clearly sourced dataset as the main deliverable.
In our experience, a good study gives a reporter three things at once: a new finding, a source to cite, and numbers they can check. It saves them research time on a topic they already cover. A study with a visible method and downloadable data is much easier to trust than a press release.
No. BrokeScholar has gone offline, so the original study page is no longer live. The screenshots on this page and the New York Times coverage are the record of the campaign.
No, and no honest agency can. Across dozens of campaigns, this is the only one the Times has covered in full. We aim each study at a realistic mix of national, trade and local outlets, and we build a year-round program so results do not hang on a single placement.
It works best when the study topic sits close to what the company actually sells, so the brand has an obvious reason to be the source. A student discount site ranking budget college towns is a natural fit. You also need data: your own, public data combined in a new way, or both.
What does your company know that nobody has published yet?
Tell us about your niche and the data you have, or wish you had. We will tell you plainly whether there is a campaign in it.
More case studies
Case study · Digital PR
3,740
new referring domains for moveBuddha
Five years of data-led campaigns took them from 582 referring domains to 4,322, and from 3rd to 1st in their space.
Case study · Digital PR
59+
links in 12 months for an insurance marketplace
Eight data campaigns earned coverage in MarketWatch, USA Today, Newsweek and Reader’s Digest.