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Demographics of Auburn, AL
Affluence Level in Auburn, AL
A middle-class area roughly in line with national averages across income, home values, education, and employment.
People of Auburn, AL
The people of Auburn, Alabama, today number roughly 78,738, forming a dense, highly educated college town where nearly 63% of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. The city’s identity is shaped by a majority-white population (65.7%) alongside a significant Black community (18.6%), a growing East and Southeast Asian presence (6.7%), and a smaller but rising Hispanic cohort (4.8%). Auburn is simultaneously a historic Southern mill town, a land-grant university anchor, and an increasingly diverse Sun Belt magnet, with distinct neighborhoods reflecting each layer of its human history.
How the city was settled and grew
Auburn’s population story begins with the 1856 founding of the East Alabama Male College (now Auburn University) on land donated by local planters. The original white settlers were largely Scots-Irish and English farmers who established cotton plantations along the surrounding creeks. After the Civil War, the city’s first Black population formed in the North College Street and West Glenn Avenue areas, where freedmen built homes, churches, and small businesses. The 1872 designation of the college as Alabama’s land-grant institution (then Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College) drew a new wave: faculty families and ambitious white farm boys from across the state. By the early 1900s, the railroad spurred a small commercial district around downtown Auburn, and the 1920s saw the rise of Woodfield, a white middle-class neighborhood of Craftsman bungalows built for professors and merchants. The Great Depression stalled growth, but World War II brought a surge of GIs to the college, many of whom stayed and settled in the Garden District (south of Samford Avenue) in modest post-war ranch homes. Through 1960, Auburn remained overwhelmingly white and native-born, with a Black population largely confined to the Rosenwald School area near North Ross Street.
Modern era (post-1965)
The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act had a modest immediate effect on Auburn, but the real demographic shift began in the 1970s as Auburn University aggressively recruited international graduate students. The first significant East and Southeast Asian wave—primarily Chinese and Korean—arrived in the 1980s, clustering near campus in the University Heights and Eagle Point apartment complexes. Indian-subcontinent families (from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) followed in the 1990s, drawn by engineering and pharmacy programs, and settled in the Lake Wilmore and Yarbrough Farms subdivisions. Domestic in-migration accelerated after 2000: white retirees from the Midwest and Northeast bought into Moores Mill and Fox Run, while Black professionals from Atlanta and Birmingham moved to South College Street and Village at Mill Creek. The Hispanic population, now 4.8%, grew from construction and service workers in the 2000s, with families concentrated in the West Longleaf Drive corridor. By 2020, Auburn’s foreign-born share reached 6.9%, with East/Southeast Asians (6.7%) and Indian-subcontinent residents (1.7%) forming distinct, non-overlapping communities—the former more likely in STEM faculty roles, the latter in small business and medical practice.
The future
Auburn’s population is trending toward greater diversity, but in a pattern of distinct enclaves rather than full integration. The white majority is slowly declining as a share (from 72% in 2010 to 65.7% today), while the Hispanic and Asian cohorts are growing steadily. The East and Southeast Asian community is plateauing in growth, as university hiring stabilizes, but the Indian-subcontinent population continues to rise, driven by tech and healthcare jobs at the new Auburn Research Park. The Black population, historically stable at 18-20%, is becoming more suburban, moving to newer developments like Greens Crossing and Northcutt Village. The city is not homogenizing: downtown Auburn is becoming younger and whiter with luxury student housing, while West Glenn Avenue remains a historic Black corridor. Over the next 10-20 years, expect the foreign-born share to approach 10-12%, with the Indian-subcontinent cohort likely surpassing the East/Southeast Asian share. The city will remain majority-white and university-dominated, but its neighborhoods will grow more ethnically specialized.
For someone moving in now, Auburn is a place where your experience depends heavily on your neighborhood and life stage. The university drives a young, transient, highly educated core, while the surrounding subdivisions offer stable, family-oriented communities with growing ethnic diversity. The city is becoming more cosmopolitan but in a segmented way—each group carving its own space rather than blending into a single melting pot.
* Values derived from national, state, county, city and local statistics and may differ in a specific area. Last updated: 2026-04-19T18:43:34.000Z
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