Georgia Southwestern State University sits on a 250-acre campus about two miles south of downtown Americus. Founded in 1906, it has a notable alumni list for a small regional university: both Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Smith (later Rosalynn Carter) studied here, and Griffin B. Bell, who served as U.S. Attorney General under Carter, graduated in 1936.
The university has about 3,400 students and an unusual specialty in glassblowing — it runs the only undergraduate art program in the University System of Georgia with a concentration in glassblowing. The campus itself is pleasant and open, and the presence of the university gives Americus a modest intellectual energy that the city's size alone wouldn't suggest.