© 2024 Wyoming Public Media
800-729-5897 | 307-766-4240
Wyoming Public Media is a service of the University of Wyoming
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Transmission & Streaming Disruptions

Wyoming Among Best States For Job-Seeking Grads

Wyoming ranks among the best states for recent college graduates to live and work. That’s according to a recent analysisof changes in four-year college tuition rates, median household income and unemployment rates since the start of the financial crisis.

Ben Taylor at California-based research engine FindTheBest did the analysis. He says those metrics have stayed relatively stable in Wyoming, earning the Cowboy state third place on the list, behind North Dakota and Oklahoma. Taylor attributed some of the post-recession success of the best performing states to their booming energy industries.

“I would point to the fact that you do have stronger oil industries in these states compared to in California, in Rhode Island,” Taylor said. “I would also point to the fact that you have a lot more of a stable pattern of spending in some of the states that did a lot better.”

Wyoming ranked ninth for tuition, fourth for income and fourteenth for employment. The states at the very bottom of the list include California, Rhode Island, Florida and New Jersey. Taylor says the rankings showed clear geographic differences.

“The fact that it was such a clean geographical divide was actually surprising to me,” Taylor said. That there wasn’t a few more of the coastal states that snuck into the top or a few more of the Midwestern or middle America states that snuck into the bottom nine or ten.”

Related Content