Hometown Glory

Houston ranked the fifth-best city in the country for college grads: Which Texaslocale is even higher?

The Daily Beast released a ranking Thursday of the top 25 cities for recent college graduates.

Houston ranked a No. 5 on the list, which included five Texas cities, but was outdone by Austin at No. 4.

The ranking seemed a little odd to us, as Austin has a notoriously competitive job market (having a local University with 50,000 undergrads will do that to you), but once we read the methodology, things made (only slightly) more sense.

The second annual ranking took into account rent prices, cost of dining, youthfulness of the population, job prospects and average pay per capita.

The cities in the top 25 generally have low unemployment, low cost of living, high average salaries, lots of rental property and a large population of people between 22 and 24 years old. Most of the cities ranked are in the South, where cost of living is generally lower and job growth is stronger.

Austin does well, according to the Daily Beast, in part because of its massive rental market. (The article makes no mention of the well-documented superiority of the Houston job market.)

The top 25 cities for recent grads are as follows: Fayetteville, N.C. (No. 1); Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Austin, Texas; Houston, Texas; Lexington, Ky.; Durham, N.C.; Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Okla.; Little Rock, Ark. (No. 10); Savannah, Ga.; Washington, D.C.; Boston, Mass.; Corpus Christi, Texas; Baton Rouge, La., New Orleans, La.; Des Moines, Iowa; Columbus, Ohio; Stamford, Conn.; Shreveport, La. (No. 20); Seattle, Wash.; Albany, N.Y.; San Antonio, Texas; Kalamazoo, Mich.; and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Do you agree with the ranking? Should Houston have ranked higher? Lower? Tell us in comments.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”