Fun fact about the history of college campuses--and their relation to rurality

From a New York Times essay about why universities are out of touch.  Nick Burns, editor of the American Quarterly, writes in "Elite Universities Are Out of Touch:  Blame the Campus."  

The campus is a uniquely American invention. (The term originated in the late 1700s to describe Princeton.) Efforts to create separate environments for scholars came about at a time when elite American opinion was convinced that cities were hotbeds of moral corruption. Keeping students in rural areas and on self-contained campuses, it was thought, would protect their virtue.

This reminds me of how we saw Trump sometimes use the rural-urban divide--and Sarah Palin before him--with the rural representing virtue and the urban representing vice.  I find it outdated and simplistic.