Schools have both. Highest rates of bike riding are always college towns. It's just that schools also have commuter students, who might live nearby to family in car range, at which point they save money hand over fist even with the costs of car ownership by not paying thousands on dorms or off campus apartments. Maybe apartment prices are super inflated near the school too, and living a 45 min drive out gets you something you can afford to rent. A lot of these college towns are in the middle of nowhere too, the college is the major employer and source of all activity, so transit is highly limited just like it would be for a european town in the middle of nowhere with maybe 10k people living year round in it.

Remember that the US is very large, and not very dense. A European's notion of 'rural' and 'urban' is quite different from the experience of most Americans.

In any case, many US universities are in rural towns that only really exist to serve that university. And you would find that the transportation patterns are entirely different for a big city school vs a rural one. While the bicycle transportation options in a university town are generally pretty good, it's also true that many people prefer to drive vs biking in 40F rain, -10F ice, or 90F and humid.

Yup. Our public transport sucks everywhere. Even NYC. And as much as I would have loved to bike it is not safe. I biked to work for a while in different cities in California and the bike lane quality varied greatly. I am not a fan of LA. Northern California seemed better for biking.

But also, outside a few areas in the US on the coasts, this country is much bigger and more spread out than EU countries. This makes driving a necessity for many people. People mostly burn gas because the alternatives aren't practical.