Millennials are defined as all you kids who were born roughly between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s and early 2000s. A lot happened during those years, and that means that your generational cohort has some unique needs.
First, you better believe millennials have a handle on technology! In fact, some of you might not even remember the pre-iPhone era, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. This big world is a lot more connected than it was before you were born, and you've never known any different.
Also, we know you care about where you live. That means all the best local bars and coffee shops, sure, but you also care about how well your city is doing socially, economically, and politically. It also means being able to get around town on your fixie, by public transportation, or by walking. Some of the best metropolitan areas for millennials include Boston, Massachusetts (including Cambridge), New York (including Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, New Jersey), Washington, DC (including Alexandria, VA), and San Francisco, California (including Sunnyvale and Santa Clara).
If all this describes you and you're also beginning the college search, we've got you covered with our first-ever ranking of best colleges for millennials. First and foremost, if you're in the market for the best education you can find, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to locate and get into the best school you can, period. But if that happens to be in a city that's also one of the best places for millennials to live, that's pretty sweet too, right?
In case you're interested in online education instead, take a look at our ranking of the Best Online Colleges and Universities. With an online program, you can live pretty much wherever you want—and get the degree you're passionate about.
What are the Best Colleges for Millennials?
That's where we come in. We've compiled a list of the top 50 colleges for millennials with your needs in mind. Here's how we did it. First, as we said above, it's important to identify and get into the best school you can. So we started things off by taking an objective look at the best schools in the country as measured by reputation and return on investment.
From there, we then identified which of those schools are located in metropolitan areas that rank among the best places for millennials to live. These areas are characterized by a few important things, such as percentage of residents between the ages of 25 and 34, how many millennial newcomers there are in the city, affordability, job opportunities, public transportation and walkability, and access to bars, restaurants, and coffee shops.
Our data for this ranking was drawn from a variety of public sources, such as U.S. News & World Report, the National Center for Education Statistics, PayScale.com, Niche.com, and the U.S. Census. The end result, we think, is a list of schools that not only represent the best education you can get and a good return on investment but also a location that will meet your needs . . . as a super-savvy millennial!
