Huntsville Beats Out Silicon Valley For The Best Places For STEM Graduates

By Nathan Young on June 3, 2015

Hey Silicon Valley, Huntsville just beat you again! The website NerdWallet released a list of the top cities in America for STEM graduates. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, and NerdWallet just listed Huntsville as the top city for STEM grads. This is on top of NerdWallet naming Huntsville as the top city for engineers in America and the second best city in America for technology jobs.

NerdWallet analyzed the size of the STEM industry and the income from STEM jobs to determine their list. Here is the top 10.

Huntsville, AL
San Jose, CA
Boulder, CO
Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.
Seattle, WA
Kennewick, WA
San Francisco, CA
Washington, D.C.
Houston, TX
Palm Bay, FL

Here is what NerdWallet said about Huntsville!

Known as Rocket City thanks to its history with space flights and the aerospace industry, Huntsville is the STEM heart of the South. The metro area’s first overall rank on this list is powered by its prominent STEM industry and high salary relative to a low cost of living. Huntsville, which also ranked highly in NerdWallet’s Best Places for Engineers and Best Places for Tech Jobs, is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the Army Aviation and Missile Command and Cummings Research Park, the second-largest research park in the world. The University of Alabama in Huntsville is also a major center for technology research — over half of the school’s graduates earn degrees in engineering or science.

See, NerdWallet sees the value of cheaper housing and rental prices you will find in the Huntsville Metro versus the San Francisco Metro. Plus, the cost of living is much lower in Huntsville versus San Francisco. It makes you wonder why more tech companies have not thought about moving to Huntsville?

Read the full story from NerdWallet at: http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/cities/best-places-stem-grads-2015/