College Students Want Atlanta For HQ2: Here’s Why

With nearly 2 million college graduates entering the job market each year, Amazon needs to consider the preferences of the next generation of talent when deciding where to build HQ2.

So, we conducted a study of 672 college students (freshman and sophomores) from 410 universities across the nation to see which city they want Amazon to build HQ2, based on where they hope to work after graduating.

Surprisingly, Atlanta was the number one choice of students surveyed (11.9%), followed by a tie between Chicago and New York City (11.2% for each), Boston (10.4%), and then Austin (8.8%).

Perhaps these students are huge fans of Donald Glover? Maybe.

However, according to the findings, it seems students care a lot about affordable housing too. We cross-referenced housing data from RENTCafé to see that the average apartment rent in Atlanta is $1,250.00 per month (and 983 square feet large), compared to $3,752.00 and 722 square feet in New York City, and $2,107.00 and 786 square feet in Los Angeles.

Shockingly, Pittsburgh (which a mere 1.5% of students surveyed picked) is the only city that appears on any top bars per capita rankings with 11.8 bars per 10,000 people. These cities need to step up their bar game to attract new grads!

For the full rankings of where students want Amazon HQ2, you can check them out here.