Austin Included in the Top 5 List of Cities for Recent College Graduates

The city of Austin was recently listed by the Wall Street Journal as being one of the country's next "youth magnet" cities. More specifically, the Wall Street Journal has listed Austin as one of the cities where young people are most likely to head once the economy achieves a greater amount of stability.

In order to draw this conclusion, the Wall Street Journal took a poll with a panel of experts ranging from economists to demographers. The major focus of the poll was to determine where the experts believed young college graduates were likely to move over the next few years. Austin made the list for a number of reasons, including the fact that the city has a low unemployment rate as well as a median household income that is relatively high. In fact, of the top five cities included on the list, Austin's unemployment rate is the lowest.

The top 10 list of cities cited by the experts include:

• Washington D.C. and Seattle, Washington (tied for first)
• New York, New York
• Portland, Oregon
• Austin, Texas
• San Jose, California
• Denver, Colorado
• Releigh-Durham, North Carolina
• Dallas, Texas
• Chicago, Illinois

When compared to top-ranking Seattle ad Washington D.C., Austin did fall short in terms of educational levels. While 61.3% of D.C.'s 25 to 35-year-old residents hold a bachelor's degree or hire and 64.2% of Seattle's residents also fall in this category, only 41.8% of this demographic holds at least a bachelor's degree in Austin. Still, this is higher than the national average and Austin has many other desirable characteristics that help draw in the younger crowd.

"Austin has become a gathering place for tech- and arts-conscious young adults," writes the Wall Street Journal. Austin is also home to the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival, which welcomed such big-name bands as Kings of Leon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dave Matthew Bands and Pearl Jam to its venue at its most recent event.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is just one example of how the city has managed to create such a powerful and respected cultural identity. It is thanks to the city's low unemployment rates, reasonable housing prices, ample educational opportunities, eco-friendly and tech-savvy mindset combined with its strong emphasis on the arts that so many people find the city to be simply irresistible. It is for those reasons that the experts polled by the Wall Street Journal put Austin at the top of the list of cities recent college graduates will flock to in order to start a new life.