Dorm life to city living: Where are college grads moving to?

College graduates are now entering the workforce, but where in the US will they end up? With inflation across every region and housing market, where can these new workers afford to live?

JLL CEO of Americas Markets John Gates joins Asking For A Trend to give insight into where recent college graduates are landing geographically and what housing affordability looks like for them.

"So traditional places like New York City... would be the leader. Boston has a large number, a couple of the large West Coast gateways, and Chicago in the Midwest would lead that list," Gates says about the top five US cities for college grads.

He describes these major American cities as having a "density" of office jobs, while also noting secondary cities that are seeing an uptick in younger workers flocking to them.

"But also, if you look, there's a lot of universities that are very proximate that feed into those. Boston is an extreme example that has a massive number of college students that are within the metropolitan limits," Gates says.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Pencils down school is out and it's time to get to work.

College grads are making their way into the workforce.

But where are they going?

Francis, we're bringing in John Gates, Ceo of America's markets at Jll John.

It's good to see you.

So let's start right there, John.

Uh the fun's over, it's time to get to work.

Where are these college kids landing John in which American cities?

The the the largest uh percentage in nominal numbers are in the big gateway markets.

Uh Josh and thanks for having me, by the way.

So traditional places like New York City, New York City would be the leader.

Boston has a large number.

A couple of the large uh west coast gateways and Chicago in the Midwest would lead that list.

Why those cities, John?

Well, they have a density of office working jobs.

But also if you look there's a lot of universities that are uh very proximate that feed into those.

Boston is an extreme example that has a massive number of college students that are within the the metropolitan limits there.

But also on the west coast.

Uh in Chicago's case, you have large schools in the big 10 conference that are in small places.

And so the young people need to go somewhere and Chicago is a job to have that.

So job availability, John, I mean it it's an important variable.

So is where you can actually, you know, as a 22 year old afford to live.

Uh how is cost of living?

How does that impact where college grads are landing?

There's kind of a big four proximity to where they went to school.

Cost of living or affordability is very large quality of life with young people is uh is a big deal and then job availability.

So all those things kind of work together and they add up in those cities and then there's um secondary cities that are doing very, very well in that regard.

Also who like what secondary cities John would you call that?

I I would lead with cities across the southern half of the US that you wouldn't call them gateway cities.

But Dallas Fort Worth has been a massive winner, Austin uh Texas creates a a very large number of high quality graduates.

Atlanta and the Carolinas I was in Charlotte this week and it's done very well.

And so cities like that have been major winners as well and we see a a tertiary effect, I guess even in some of the the smaller cities in the Midwest are starting to have in migration from graduates as Cincinnati as an example.

And John were there, we look at these college grads in terms of their decisions of, you know, where they ultimately ended up.

Are there any kind of interesting um distinctions between the Ivy Leaguers and everybody else?

Well, this the distinction would be that if you rank the top 20 schools and we don't do that.

But other people do, you would have an overweighting of those of those graduates going to those initial gateway markets.

So, I, I is a great example that they would be overweighted to cities like, or metropolitan areas like New York and like Boston.

And then again, uh the northern California and, and perhaps southern California John, a lot of people obviously got used to working from home for these recent college grads.

They now go to work.

Should they expect that?

Oh, yeah, it's, it's very different than even just a couple of years ago and certainly on entry level jobs.

So there's not as much uh hiring uh pressure.

You don't have quite as much wage inflation because we're closer to, to parity on supply and demand of available office workers.

And there's a very clear expectation.

A hybrid is a part of it quite often.

So it's not necessarily five days a week, but let's say it's three days a week.

You now need to live in the city where your job is and where your, your seat in your office building is much different than two years ago.

All right.

Sorry kids, you're gonna have to go into the office like everybody else, John.

Thank you.

Thank you John.

Thanks for joining the show.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.