Mr. Weprin is the founder and chief executive of AJ Capital Partners, the Chicago real estate company that is behind Graduate Hotels, a four-year-old chain of boutique hotels situated near college campuses and designed to cater to the nostalgia and local boosterism that are part of the culture of university towns. (Room keys are imprinted with the names of famous alumni, and public spaces are decorated with historical photos of campus life, vintage art and other collegiate artifacts.)

“The cost of living is low, you have culture, you have commerce, and you have a youthful energy,” said Mr. Weprin, who, with his confident manner and determinedly youthful look (that country singer cap seems to be a staple of his wardrobe) might well represent a new generation of hotel executive: the brotelier.

He and his company are trying to create a brand that will find year-round business by catering to more than just alumni coming back for once-a-year football weekends or 10-year anniversaries of their graduating classes. Travel to college towns has increased in recent years thanks to more frequent visits by “helicopter parents” and the rise of the parent-child college tour. Mr. Weprin, who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Tennessee, has even come up with a name for this growing niche: “visitcation.”

There are 11 Graduate Hotels in locations like Ann Arbor, Mich.; Oxford, Miss.; Tempe, Ariz.; and Charlottesville, Va.; and nine more in construction or renovation phases, including in Nashville, New Haven and Palo Alto, Calif. In September, AJ Capital expects to close a $475 million fund-raising round, said Cooper Manning, a principal of AJ Capital and its head of investor relations. The company expects the portfolio to grow to 30 hotels or more. The company has $3 billion in assets.