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Hartford, New Haven – Billed As One City – Top List As Best Place For College Grads

By MATTHEW STURDEVANT

August 31, 2011

Apparently, Connecticut is the best place for college graduates to find a job, according to an analysis by Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com.

The study names best cities for new college graduates to live, based on the availability of jobs for people with less than a year experience and the percentage of the population that is 20-24 years old.

For reasons that weren't immediately clear Wednesday, the study lumps together New Haven and Hartford as one metropolitan area. New Haven and Hartford are not in the same metropolitan area as defined by the U.S. Census.

The Hartford-New Haven combination topped the list for "best cities for recent college graduates," followed by Cleveland, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta and St. Louis.

It may be that Hartford appears to have more young people because its population was averaged together with New Haven and Hamden which are home to Yale, Quinnipiac, Albertus Magnus, Southern Connecticut State University, University of New Haven and other higher-education institutions.

The study also says that the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $1,047, though that is based on apartments that advertise with Apartments.com, which tends to have advertisements for places that are pricier than what is generally available on the market, said Tammy Kotula, a spokeswoman for Apartments.com.

"There are almost three times as many renters moving for new job opportunities this year than in 2010, according to our annual moving survey," Kotula said. "This tells us that the economy is improving, but people are relocating as a result. Because this adds more pressure on new grads to find the right place at the right price, we issued our list as a resource to help them make informed decisions on the best places to live based on job availability and cost of living."

CareerRookie.com is a job site for college students that is affiliated with CareerBuilder.com.