Perhaps it's the food scene that draws young college graduates to Houston, or maybe it's the ample outdoor attractions. Or, more than likely, it's a different type of green. A recent report by Forbes counts the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown region as one of the highest-paying areas in the United States.

The report leans on paycheck data from PayScale.com to rank the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas according to the salaries of citizens that hold at least a bachelors degree. The Houston area took No. 5 with an overall median yearly salary of $66,700, a starting median pay of $53,200 and a mid-career salary of $94,600.

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California's information technology hot spot, topped the list with a median pay of $93,100. Not far away, San Francisco-Oakland-Freemont (where median pay is $73,500) took No. 2 on the list, followed by Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., and Washington-Arlington-Alexandra.

The South Texas trio of McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, where the overall median pay is just $45,600 per year, ranked among the worst areas as the No. 2 lowest paying metro and El Paso was nearly as bad, listed as the fourth-worst with an overall median pay of $46,900.

Other metropolitan areas in the Lone Star State ranked somewhere in between, with Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington landing No. 14 on the list (with an overall median pay of $62,200), Austin-Round Rock at No. 28 and San Antonio at No. 53.