Is the location of university an important factor in finding a job?

[bclintonk]

<p>

@hawkette

An important thing to also keep in mind is how the regional economies affect the wealth of a school and also its post-graduate placement opportunities. If you attend college in a depressed state or regional economy, then you’re virtually required to relocate to a distant spot where you may or may not be in a competitive position vs the local, more entrenched colleges.

</p>

<p>Well, by that logic I guess you’d be well advised to avoid schools in the high-unemployment states like:</p>

<p>Rhode Island: 12.7% unemployment (Brown University)
California: 12.3% unemployment (Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, Claremont Colleges, USC)
District of Columbia: 11.8% unemployment (Georgetown, GWU)
Florida: 11.5% unemployment (UF, U Miami)
Illinois: 10.9% unemplyoment (U Chicago, Northwestern, UIUC)
North Carolina: 10.8% unemployment (Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, Wake Forest)
Tennessee: 10.3% unemployment (Vanderbilt)
Georgia: 10.2% unemployment (Emory, U Georgia)
New Jersey: 9.7% unemployment (Princeton)
Indiana: 9.6% unemployment (Notre Dame)
Missouri: 9.5% unemployment (WUSTL)
Massachusetts: 8.8% unemployment (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, etc)
New York: 8.6% unemployment (Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Barnard, Colgate, RPI, U Rochester, etc)
Pennsylvania: 8.5% unemployment (Penn, Carnegie-Mellon, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, etc) </p>

<p>All these states are among bottom half of states in unemployment rates. Most are “Rust Belt” states, except for a few Southeastern states which we might dub “the New Rustbelt.”</p>

<p>Instead, you might want to hitch your star to the lowest-unemployment states like:</p>

<p>North Dakota: 4.1% unemployment (U North Dakota, ND State)
Nebraska: 4.5% unemployment (U Nebraska-Lincoln, Creighton)
South Dakota: 5.0% unemployment (U South Dakota)
Kansas: 6.3% unemployment (U Kansas, K State)
Utah: 6.3% unemployment (U Utah, BYU)
Montana: 6.4% unemployment (U Montana)</p>

<p>Hmmm . . . something’s wrong here. Why do most of the best schools in the country end up in the “regions to avoid” category? Oh, I get it! In most fields it’s a NATIONAL labor market! We have free mobility of labor, including the highly educated white collar kind, across state boundaries! And the employment prospects of graduates of top colleges are much more strongly tied to the reputations of their schools and/or particular programs within those schools than to the locations of those schools!</p>

<p>Gee, hawkette, you really had me going there for a moment! Ha-ha. Good one!</p>