I’d add plentiful, clean water to the list along with relative affordability for my kids.
I’ve ‘lost’ my kid to her college state. However, she was in a lower cost of living area and is moving to a bigger, more expensive city. I’m choking over how much she and boyfriend will spend in rent.
We have always lived in an extremely high cost area. Considered a move to another high cost area once for better paying jobs but the pay here was high enough. Considered moving South and elsewhere, educational systems always stopped us. Once the kids are grown, I’m not sure where we’ll go. It’s likely we’ll stay. Though we’ll probably move within the state to a less expensive town with lower taxes.
For us, it’s more likely we’ll just go visit our kids. We don’t want them to make college decisions based on where they think they’ll live. Better that they are in a good career so they can pick and chose.
Once they move very far from the nest, it can be very hard to predict where your young adult children will be able and willing to settle in 5-10-15 years.
On the other hand, most students do attend public colleges within ~100 miles from home. So if you want to pick colleges with future COL in mind, maybe your best strategy would be to settle in a low-cost area with a good state university system when your kids are young, then start contributing early to a 529 plan sponsored by your state. Tell your kids you’ll contribute whatever accumulates in the plan, but only for an in-state school.
I think somebody is blowing smoke on pay at Microsoft and Amazon. It’s good but not that good. And Amazon is known as a hellish place to work. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Microsoft-Senior-Software-Development-Engineer-Salaries-E1651_D_KO10,46.htm
It’s really tough to predict what kids will like and where they’ll end up. I see that a ton from kids at school, but just to use my own three as examples:
Oldest picked a college (near Chattanooga), went there, found his best friend for life, got married there, went to the nearest BIG city (Atlanta) for a job, didn’t like the big city, kept the job, and relocated to an area more similar to where he grew up, but closer to where he went to college. His goal is to return to where he went to college (keeping his big city job as it’s portable).
Middle son picked a college (in Rochester, NY), went there, ended up in med school there and loves that area in general. He will have to see where he gets residency to consider more options in depth, but he and I were just talking about the COL thread yesterday and he has no desire to go to a HCOL place. He went to Stanford for one summer doing paid research - and saw how much of his pay was eaten up by rent. He liked Stanford’s area (and nearby San Fran, etc), but very much dislikes NYC from trips he’s taken there. Will he come home again? He likes our area too, so maybe, but again, he has quite a few more years of needing to be elsewhere before he’ll decide.
Youngest was SURE he wanted south and near Big Water, so went to school in FL. After four years he just graduated. He had a pick of a few places to go including Jordan where he studied abroad (and enjoyed it). Where did he choose? Back home. He loves our farm and is planning on taking it over - switching it to permaculture farming when we go elsewhere. He’s already begun the transformation. NOTE: His soon to be fiancee might put some complications into these plans… Time will tell.
With kids at school, some leave with plans and continue those plans. Some leave with plans and change them picking elsewhere. Some go wherever the jobs end up whether they like the area or not. Those who stay nearby (for college) usually stay relatively nearby unless a job or partner pulls them elsewhere.
Partners can (and often do) have a big pull as the couple jointly figures out jobs and places they like.
With rare exceptions, I don’t think parents can pick things out for kids (or predict them). I’d have never figured youngest to be our lad to return home. All were raised knowing the planet is their “home” - not any one particular place even if they were essentially raised with a hometown in PA. As parents, we expect to visit them. Both H and I moved away from home, but we live in an area more or less similar to where we both grew up. The area we chose isn’t in the same state as our college (where we met). It’s not the same topography either.