Murfreesboro is a small town where college students really create the town feel and character. So many small towns have lost population over the last 20-30 years that having the local college presence in the Murfreesboro area, with all of the energy of the students filling area dorms and apartments each fall, really helps Murfreesboro maintain a good economy.
Despite the fact that it is a small town, Murfreesboro has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the town for affordable transportation.
In terms of college education, Murfreesboro is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 31.13% of adults in Murfreesboro have a college degree.
The per capita income in Murfreesboro in 2018 was $27,672, which is middle income relative to North Carolina, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $110,688 for a family of four. However, Murfreesboro contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Murfreesboro also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.79% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Murfreesboro is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Murfreesboro home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Murfreesboro residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Murfreesboro include English, Irish, German, Italian, and Jamaican.
The most common language spoken in Murfreesboro is English. Other important languages spoken here include Slavic languages and Greek.
