NerdWallet’s Best Cities For New Grads

Baton Rouge, Lousiana

Baton Rouge, Lousiana

The remainder of the Top 10 includes the usual emerging hotspots: Seattle, Pittsburgh, Austin, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Below those cities, you’ll find plenty of surprises. Baton Rouge, Louisiana stands out at 11th, thanks to housing averaging less than 20% of income. Like Madison, Baton Rouge is a state capitol that is the seat of the state’s leading university (Louisiana State University). However, Baton Rouge’s economy is based more on construction and manufacturing, with the region featuring one of the world’s largest oil refineries.

LARGEST CITIES GENERALLY FARE POORLY

Several cities perform weaker than expected in NerdWallet’s methodology. Raleigh, North Carolina – the de facto capitol of the Research Triangle – places only 15th, burdened by an unexpectedly low concentration of twenty-somethings (18.8%). However, residents do enjoy decent wages ($50,679) and below average housing costs (22.2%). The same is true of Columbus, Ohio, where barely a third of the population holds a four-year college degree (or more) despite the presence of Ohio State University.

Several leading cities also don’t fare well with NerdWallet either, including #34 Chicago, Illinois (5.7% unemployment rate); #35 San Jose, California ($68,737 incomes offset by 29.1% going to rent); #48 New York City (Just 16.6% of the population are 20-29 years of age); and #69 Los Angeles (5.4% unemployment rate with nearly 30% of income going to rent).

Compared to last year, the 2016 NerdWallet ranking remained relatively stable. Arlington and Madison flip-flopped the first and second spots, while Minneapolis and Washington D.C. exchanged the third and fifth slots. At the same time, both Lincoln, Nebraska and Lubbock, Texas dropped out of NerdWallet’s top 10. Lincoln’s slide stemmed from a 13% decrease in the number of 20-29 year-olds in the city, though its unemployment rate (2.3%) again ranked the lowest among the 100 largest cities. While the percentage of degree holders in Lubbock jumped from 18.3% to 28.8% over the past year, it slipped in key areas like rent while remaining stagnant in the other areas.

DON’T MISS: THE TOP FEEDER SCHOOLS TO GOOGLE, GOLDMAN SACHS AND MORE

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.