Gen Zers are taking over college cities — after they graduate

• Gen Z is moving in droves to college towns after they get their degree. 
• 20-somethings that came of age during the pandemic want to live near each other.
• They are looking for bigger city amenities within their budgets.

For Gen Z, school is cool. So much so, that they're moving to larger cities shaped by university life. 

It was a dealmaker for Alex Akmal, a 22-year-old project manager born and raised in Pullman, a city of 32,827 in eastern Washington near the Idaho border. 

Last year, she and her partner — a photographer whose name is also Alex — moved to Madison, Wisconsin, with their two cats, Pumpkin and Kiki, after graduating from the University of Montana in Missoula.

They decided on the Badger State's capital — known for its academic influence, art scene, sports, and entertainment — after Akmal got a job as a project manager at healthcare software company Epic at a salary nearly double what other employers had offered, she said. At a population of 269,000, Madison is the home of the University of Wisconsin and dwarfs Missoula, at 73,822, and Pullman, which hosts a Washington State University campus.

On top of the great gig, everything else just seemed to fit, Akmal told Insider. When she came to visit, the city's collegiate charm felt familiar to her. 

"Me and a lot of my friends are very much lifelong learners," she said. "You have cool speakers that come to college towns, you get cool performers, and lots of sporting events." 

Akmal is not alone. US Census data analyzed by home renovation advice website Today's Homeowner shows that cities with the highest rate of net migration of adults aged 18 to 24 in 2021 had a common thread — most were metros that are socially, economically, and recreationally influenced by colleges. Topping the list is Washington, DC, home to Georgetown University;  Columbia, South Carolina, home to the University of South Carolina, and Boston, where dozens of institutions of higher learning are nestled. Madison, Akmal's choice, also made the top 10.

LinkedIn's economic graph team had a similar conclusion — with Madison at the top of the list — after identifying US metros with the largest shares of the platform's Gen Z members who in 2021 added an employer to their profile in the same month as the new job began.

Broadly, Gen Zers are looking for a more urban experience in bigger cities, including those older Americans were leaving, according to Today's Homeowner, which analyzed data from the Census Bureau's 2021 American Community Survey. With career and housing opportunities available, they've discovered that they can also have the freedom to pursue outdoor and social activities with like-minded people shaped by similar experiences — including the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the case of Gen Z, one move often begets another, according to one demographer.

Jason Dorsey, president of the Center for Generational Kinetics, told Insider that young people are drawn to these places because they are popular with people like themselves. It doesn't have to be places that they already know — as it was for Akmal, the Gen Z destinations are typically not cities where they got their degrees.

Bonded by trauma: coming-of-age during the pandemic

These young adults also have something that bonds them more uniquely: they share a coming-of-age that was tainted by the omnipresence of the pandemic. The experience left many feeling delayed in their careers or their life, and the proximity to others in the same boat is comforting to them.

"If you end up in a college town, you're suddenly surrounded by all these people your own age, who also had that same awful early career pandemic experience," Dorsey said. "You instantly feel a sense of connection that you don't when, candidly, you're around older generations that went to the pandemic at a different life stage."

Gen Z bonds have been cemented even more because many young people are delaying marriage and having children, the center found.

On top of the trauma bonding, there are other factors driving recent graduates to bustling college towns, though not always those with the brightest lights, like New York City. Often, the same amenities of cosmopolitan cities can be had elsewhere, but at a lower cost, Gen Zers are finding.

Affordable cities compete with cosmopolitan centers

Top among those amenities is housing, whose costs are still rising in many parts of the country. For example, Akmal and her partner live in a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom apartment right outside of Madison. They pay $1,800 together, or about $900 each.

For comparison, the typical two-bedroom in New York City, for example, is over $3,900, according to Zumper.  With the savings, she has more opportunities to eat at high-end restaurants and buy tickets to cultural events. Last year, she saw the Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen.

Affordability is one of the reasons that Alberta, Canada, native Maite Latorre chose to pursue her master's degree in international relations at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, a city of 146,000. She pays just over $1,000 for her share of rent in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment.

In the other cities where Latorre might have pursued her studies, she would have had to pay about $1,500 for the same space.

Latorre said she also chose Syracuse — number 7 on Today's Homeowner's list — for the proximity to nature-filled state parks and its diversity, two amenities also present in Madison. After her studies, she said she might move to Washington, D.C., an even larger Gen Z hangout with those offerings and more. 

Cities must evolve for the future. 

For whatever reason they are coming to these cities, these Gen Zers are here to stay. The trend is only expected to grow, Dorsey told Insider.

The cities where the trend is most notable will face a reckoning as the youthful newcomers hit a "critical mass," he said. They'll need to think harder about their rising costs of living, economic inequality, and public transportation issues, because Gen Z values affordability, equity and diversity, and walkable cities, he said. 

"It's a really interesting moment for these college and university towns to think about what they want to become," Dorsey said.