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Columbus has slipped from 23rd in 2007 to 25th in 2008 on Forbes’ annual list of top cities for young professionals. San Francisco topped the list this year, beating out New York City as last year’s number one. Columbus scored well in our percentages of young, never-married persons due to our large college base, but ranked poorly in college graduate retention and concentration of companies.
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- Columbus is Forbes.com’s #23 Best City for YPs in 2007
- Columbus is Forbes’ 18th best city for couples in 2008
- Columbus: Least Expensive Residential Rent in US
Wow. I’d actually have expected us to be higher than that. Maybe I should take this as a good sign for the country overall, though.
Or as a good sign for our colleges. :wink:
I thought it was the opposite–one of the things driving Columbus down being the lack of the ability to retain the college grads we produce?
Then again, that doesn’t say anything about the quality of our local colleges themselves. It only says something about the post-college economy, i.e., the job market. The colleges could be producing stellar grads going to Chicago or mediocre grads going to Chicago; the stat that hurts us is the bare fact that they’re leaving.
Note that one of the criteria used to discern someone as a YP is “never married”. Perhaps many of the successful people who were here two years ago haven’t left but have gotten hitched.
personally I think that college retention figure is grossly misleading. A city with such a large % of its population as college students is obviously not going to retain them all. A city like Chicago I would guess has a drastically smaller % of its residents as college students.
If Columbus was on par w/ this statistic then this city would have 3 million people. Being in a business that is in tune with OSU and its students, I find that more and more are preferring to stay here cause of the benefits of quality of live compared to Cincy and Cleveland. Also it’s much better to start out making $35k a year in Columbus than $45k a year in Chicago or NYC.
I’ve always thought the focus on retaining local college graduates (OSU, CCAD, etc..) was competitively and economically detrimental to this city and might actually put those graduates who choose to stay at a future disadvantage. The wrong focus.
Let me explain. A huge percentage of the student bodies of our colleges come from the suburbs, exurbs of Columbus and the rural areas beyond in this state. Keeping these graduates here and in the Ohio bubble might prevent them from gaining the perspectives, experiences and connections they could gain in other places. If they choose to leave and come back their value increases exponentially.
Some of our larger institutions here have a huge incentive to leverage this cheap pool of labor (I don’t blame them, but..). I think this is evident in our retention efforts directed at graduates.
If we did adjust our YP recruitment efforts and focused on bringing back those in other cities with connections and experience I feel like it would be a better use of our time. It also seems like there is no understanding of the new concept of mobility in general.
Unfortunately, I’m generally not convinced businesses know how to leverage and value these folks because they’re more expensive.
yay for philly getting 13th.
wait, how many students are in Columbus?
Chicago-land has a crap load of students. I’m sure a fair number of them stick around, same thing with new york.
The point being, I think retention is not THAT huge of an issue if you’ve got a bangin’ city that kids are willing to relocate to from other places. A great majority of OSU kids come from Ohio….who wants to retain them, when you could attract the cream of the crop from other great places?
There’s something to that, but I’m not convinced it’s quite as black-and-white as your suggesting. There are more than a few companies around town that successfully compete on a national or even global level, and you can certainly get top tier experience here in quite a few fields if that’s what you’re looking for. While there’s no doubt that there are benefits to locals getting broader experience elsewhere, it’s also worth observing that people are coming from all over the US and abroad to Columbus seeking the same thing.
There’s something to that, but I’m not convinced it’s quite as black-and-white as your suggesting. There are more than a few companies around town that successfully compete on a national or even global level, and you can certainly get top tier experience here in quite a few fields if that’s what you’re looking for. While there’s no doubt that there are benefits to locals getting broader experience elsewhere, it’s also worth observing that people are coming from all over the US and abroad to Columbus seeking the same thing.
True it is a generalization and definitely there are companies competing at that level. Limited Brands comes to mind. With them a huge percentage of the design staff is English or has been recruited from major metros, while operations folks tend to be home grown.
Right…. College graduate retention is generally a bad metric, because it reflects at least five major things: 1) the quality of local colleges; 2) the quality of the city; 3) the quality of other cities; 4) the quality of other colleges; and 5) percentage of in-state students. Problem is, it’s usually used as a metric of only one of these things, depending on who’s using it.
Just got this in the ol’ email:
Howdy! As you know, one of the Columbus Chamber’s top priorities is to attract and retain a talented workforce in the Columbus Region. As such, we are assisting two workforce-oriented organizations, Sequent and The Human Capital Institute (HCI), in distributing a survey to folks like you who make up the “workforce supply.†Please provide your input—by Friday, August 1—by completing the following survey:
Workforce Survey – Supply: http://www.custominsight.com/survey/multi.asp?sid=columbuschambersurveysysrp7s&s=1
The survey seeks feedback from the perspective of an employee working in Columbus regarding the attributes of the Columbus community: What makes Columbus an appealing place to work? What are the strengths and opportunities that Columbus has over other communities? Under what circumstances would you consider moving to another city?
The responses of this survey will be combined with a similar survey of employers (i.e., the workforce demand) and analyzed by HCI. The results of the surveys will be compiled and presented in a final report that will be shared at an upcoming Columbus Talent Summit hosted by Nationwide Insurance on October 23, 2008.
Thanks for your input!
P.S. Feel free to forward to folks you know who might be interested in participating. The more the merrier!