(Community Matters) Joe Cortright, City Observatory, calls 25 – 34 year olds w/ a bachelor’s degree or higher, the Young & Restless because of their mobility – despite a decades-long, nationwide decline in mobility 1mm+ of these young people move across state lines each year.
- Two-thirds of the nation’s 25-34 year olds with a BA degree live
in the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan areas, those
with a million or more population. - Talented young adults, in the aggregate are much more likely to
choose to locate in close in urban neighborhoods
than are other Americans. - Nationally, the four-year college attainment rate for
25 to 34 year olds increased from 27.5 percent in
2000, to 32.2 percent in 2012. This means that the
total number of 25 to 34 year olds with a four-year
degree increased by about 2.7 million over the past
12 years. A key driver of rising educational attainment is
the increased educational attainment of women. - Fully 56 percent of 25 to 34 year olds with a four-year degree in 2012 were women; in 2000 53 percent of young adults with a
four-year degree were women. - San Antonio, Las Vegas and Riverside have the
lowest levels of college attainment among 25 to 34
year olds (less than 25 percent in each case), even
though in each instance college attainment rates
have increased for this age group over the past
decade. - For every college graduate who takes a job in an innovation industry, he found, five additional jobs are eventually created in that city, such as for waiters, carpenters, doctors, architects and teachers.
- One study finds that a one percentage point increase in the fraction
of adults with a four-year leads to a 2.3 percent
increase in productivity as measured by GDP per
capita (Abel & Gabe, 2011). - Austin is #21 in MSAs by number of Young & Restless w/ 128k in the Austin-Round Rock MSA, a 44% increase between 2000 and 2010 – the 7th highest increase among MSAs of 1mm+.
- as a percent of our population, Austin ranks 6th with 40.8% of its population between 25 – 34 w/ at least a bachelor’s degree.
- 19k of our Young & Restless live in a close-in urban neighborhood -(within 3 miles of the center of the region’s principal central business district) – up from 15k in 2000
- The Young and Restless help drive economic
development. Talented young adults are important to
entrepreneurship and new business formation.
Community Matters 