Economic Growth & the Future for College Graduates

College Search & Selection
1

<p>A friend recently sent me an article about the change in population centers in the US from 1910 to 2006. </p>

<pre><code>1910
</code></pre>

<p>1 NYC
2 Chicago
3 Philadelphia
4 St. Louis
5 Boston
6 Cleveland
7 Baltimore
8 Pittsburgh
9 Detroit
10 Buffalo</p>

<pre><code>2006
</code></pre>

<p>1 NYC
2 LA
3 Chicago
4 Dallas-Ft Worth
5 Philadelphia
6 Houston
7 Miami
8 Washington
9 Atlanta
10 Detroit</p>

<p>The relocation of population from the Northeast to the South and the West is well known and has been widely reported, but this article nonetheless piqued my interest and had me wondering what this means for future college graduates.</p>

<p>In the Northeast, there has been tremendous growth in the financial services industry. Huge wealth has been generated by Wall Street and a great real estate boom, residential and commercial, has occurred and expanded that wealth. With that great wealth has come an enormous appetite among college students to chase the money and head for Wall Street. Today, high school students will often prioritize their college choices according to which school will best position them to get on this gravy train. </p>

<p>The question now is what will be the growth sectors of the economy from now until 2020 or later? What industries appear best positioned and which colleges are best positioned to staff the people in those emerging companies and industries? Should students even be thinking about these things as they consider various colleges?</p>

2

<p>Conventional wisdom has been that Detroit's "growth" is more about sprawl than population. And I'd expect to see Phoenix on that latter list. Can you give more information about what the numbers/ranking 1-10 mean?</p>

3

<p>hoedown,
I don't really know much about this as I got the info from a friend who said it was in her local paper. I agree that you would expect Phoenix to be on there as one of the top cities for 2006. I guess that means that this list probably is talking about the cities themselves and not the metro areas. </p>

<p>With or without Phoenix, the message and the questions are the same. With the shift in population (and job growth), what does this mean for the future of American postgraduate opportunities for college students? Clearly technology and healthcare will be huge secular sectors that will only gain in prominence in the years to come. While Wall Street has become so big and powerful and wealthy and that would normally lead to some sort of retrenchment, you could go broke betting against them as they always seem to have some way to expand the pie.</p>