Offer

What Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington Have to Offer

First, each area is a major academic center. This means there is a population of young people drawn to these cities for the educational opportunities they represent. Once in the area, strong local job markets create incentives to stay.

Second, while we usually think of Silicon Valley as the nation’s leading tech center, there are enormous opportunities in the Northeast. For instance, according to Money magazine, graduates from Cambridge-based MIT have early career earnings of $72,500 versus $64,400 from Stanford – and the cost of an MIT degree is almost $12,000 less.

Third, while we usually think of Washington, DC in terms of government buildings and the nightly news, it’s also a major computing, communications and medical research center. For instance, the CIA (computers) is based in McLean, VA while the National Security Agency (computers, communications) is located at Fort Meade, MD.

Montgomery County, MD – which shares a subway system with DC – is home to the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. These massive institutions are serviced by countless contractors and consultants which means there are plenty of highly-paid job opportunities. Moreover, the DC area is saturated with government jobs. These jobs offer good pay, exceptional benefits and cannot be shipped overseas.

Lastly, any list of the best technology centers in the world is likely to include Stanford, MIT, the Israel Institute of Technology (the Technion), the Indian Institute of Technology and Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon.

Carnegie Mellon ranks first among U.S. universities in terms of start-ups per research dollar and – according to U.S. News & World Report – it has the best computer science program in the U.S. While the school has campuses in Silicon Valley and Qatar, its central location is in Pittsburgh, an industrial city now emerging as a revitalized tech hub.

One of the city’s great attractions is a large stock of affordable homes. While the typical San Jose home lists for $769,000, the average in Pittsburgh is just $154,000.

So while others are migrating South, millennials in big numbers are going where the jobs are, and for many of them that means three old-line cities in the Northeast.