“Why College Towns Are Looking Smart” by Kelly Evans. Wall Street Journal, CCLIII, No. 68, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, p. D1.

College towns are the places to go for jobs. Out of six metropolitan towns with unemployment below 4%, three boast colleges in their environs. Not only do the universities in these towns often have jobs available, the towns themselves, “long-considered recession resistant”, also have openings.

According to Harvard economist Edward Glaeser when the “adult population with college degrees in a city increases by 10%, wages correspondingly rise by about 7.8%.” This seems to indicate that one of the best incentives to stimulate the economy is to get more people in, and out of, college. Of course it will take time to educate the population, and they have be capable of completing college in the first place, but in the long run it does seems to indicate economic prosperity.

Unfortunately most state legislatures are too short-sighted and education is often one of the first items to be cut in the budget when the economy gets tough. Why? Because it directly impacts the fewest number of constituents in the near-term. It does hurt everyone in the long-term, however.