The Cities Where Graduates Can Thrive

At first I thought with story was the work of Charlie Daniels. Then I remembered he's dead.

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The Cities Where Graduates Can Thrive

In Birmingham and Tulsa, opportunity is abundant and the cost of living is low.

By Randall Woodfin and Monroe Nichols

Updated May 28, 2026 5:14 pm ET

It’s a tough time to graduate from college. Graduates hold an unusually pessimistic view of their job prospects. Who can blame them? Postings for entry-level jobs continue to decline, with artificial intelligence absorbing much junior-level work, even as the cost of living gets higher.

But there is a bright spot: the Sunbelt. Young people no longer need to choose between living in an affordable place and pursuing an ambitious career.

We are both millennials who watched our friends follow what they assumed was the path to success: Move to a big city and earn a salary commensurate with a higher cost of living. But there’s been a shift. A recent report by ADP Research ranked our cities—Birmingham, Ala., and Tulsa, Okla.—among the six best for college graduates to find employment. We beat New York, Boston and San Francisco.

Decades of investments in industries that fit our regions have propelled our cities to this position. Birmingham has built a bustling bioscience sector anchored by the local University of Alabama campus. The Southern Research Institute’s Station 41 biotech incubator is in such demand that by the end of 2026 it will have more than doubled its lab and office space since 2024.

The city has also attracted major companies such as Fannie Mae, which relocated jobs from a California office. The U.S. Coast Guard plans a new training center. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United is investing $330 million in a new headquarters and warehouse and sales facilities, and the city continues to benefit from the entrepreneurship born of its black community’s cultural heritage of resilience.

For all of this opportunity, Birmingham boasts an average monthly rent of $1,182, 28% below the national average. The median home price is $162,000, 61% lower than the nationwide median.

Tulsa, once the oil capital of the world, has built on its industrial legacy and diversified its economy. The city has become a leader in drones and advanced manufacturing and attracted investments from Nvidia and Microsoft to help build an AI industry where Black Wall Street once stood.

Tulsa also established one of the country’s first remote worker relocation programs, attracting more than 4,000 people. As of 2025, they have contributed nearly $900 million and more than 1,000 new jobs to the city’s economy.

You can still rent an average home in Tulsa for $913 a month, 44% lower than the national average, and you can buy one for $225,000, 46% below the U.S. average.

For too long, cities have expected young professionals to sacrifice money and proximity to family for the promise of opportunity, only to fall short on their end of the bargain. It’s time to rethink this agreement. Rather than expecting young people to feel lucky just to be somewhere, we should urge young people to consider places that would feel lucky to have them. That’s where opportunity lives, and it’s never been more affordable.

Messrs. Woodfin and Nichols, both Democrats, are the mayors of Birmingham, Ala., and Tulsa, Okla., respectively.