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Study Says Massachusetts Best State For Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "The Milken Institute (site is cnn/msnbc/wapo dotted it seems) has released a study claiming MA is the best state for technology while Texas has dropped to 26th. I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this. It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space. I just don't see (in my job hunting) very many start-up or expansion in the states they list at the top.
Lots more at Google News."
Reader footh adds a link to a PDF of the results.
India is the Best state for tech.
Is that the heat produced by your CPU is a dry heat.
(It's a joke, I lived there for 16 years.)
Maybe it's an election year ploy. Think about it - MA on top, TX dropping hard... hmmm... Either that, or a precursor of things to come...
With all those colleges in MA (including MIT), it's not surprising that it's the top state for technology. It's virtually a breading ground for it.
Good thing about Massachusetts:
MIT.
Bad thing about Massachusetts:
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon.
State Rank(2004) Rank(2002) Rank Change Score(2004)
Massachusetts MA 1 1 0 84.35
California CA 2 3 1 78.86
Colorado CO 3 2 -1 78.77
Maryland MD 4 4 0 78.19
Virginia VA 5 5 0 72.27
Washington WA 6 6 0 69.87
New Jersey NJ 7 7 0 69.03
Minnesota MN 8 10 2 67.49
Utah UT 9 9 0 66.49
Connecticut CT 10 8 -2 66.26
Rhode Island RI 11 21 10 64.01
New Hampshire NH 12 13 1 63.43
Delaware DE 13 11 -2 62.51
New Mexico NM 14 20 6 61.75
New York NY 15 12 -3 60.66
Pennslyvania PA 16 16 0 60.36
Arizona AZ 17 18 1 58.47
Georgia GA 18 15 -3 58.10
Oregon OR 19 23 4 57.76
North Carolina NC 20 17 -3 57.28
Illinois IL 21 19 -2 56.59
Vermont VT 22 31 9 56.00
Texas TX 23 14 -9 54.91
Ohio OH 24 27 3 54.18
Michigan MI 25 24 -1 54.01
Kansas KS 26 22 -4 53.12
Wisconsin WI 27 25 -2 51.76
Nebraska NE 28 32 4 50.91
Indiana IN 29 30 1 50.73
Idaho ID 30 26 -4 49.03
Missouri MO 31 28 -3 48.11
Florida FL 32 29 -3 44.47
Maine ME 33 36 3 43.47
Tennessee TN 34 40 6 42.77
Oklahoma OK 35 37 2 42.65
Alabama AL 36 33 -3 42.36
Iowa IA 37 35 -2 41.90
Montana MT 38 34 -4 40.65
Hawaii HI 39 43 4 40.05
Alaska AK 40 39 -1 39.91
Wyoming WY 41 38 -3 38.72
Louisiana LA 42 44 2 36.66
Nevada NV 43 42 -1 36.09
South Carolina SC 44 41 -3 35.94
North Dakota ND 45 45 0 34.55
West Virginia WV 46 48 2 33.65
South Dakota SD 47 47 0 33.31
Kentucky KY 48 46 -2 32.61
Arkansas AR 49 50 1 29.53
Mississippi MS 50 49 -1 27.48
State Average 52.64
Yes - it's that Michael Milken - the securities fraud guy.
It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space.
:-/. (Last year, Governor Davis raised UC fees by 30%, and this year Governor Schwarzenegger is raising graduate UC fees by 40%. For the professional [law, med, business] schools, there's almost no difference between UC and private institutions... except that the privates tend to be better at getting you scholarships. The UC system used to do a great job at keeping our best and brightest in the state, as well as attracting those from far and wide... but we're seriously losing that edge.)
The low cost of living argument doesn't help anyone in the US anymore. If a company is interested in relocating some of its jobs (like call centers) to somewhere with a low cost of living, they have *no* motivation to choose somewhere inside the US. They can do much, much better by relocating overseas.
On another note, I saw Ross DeVol (cited in the article) speak at a panel on Southern California's Regional Economy at UCLA last fall. He had some interesting stuff to say/show about the differences between Southern California and the rest. The issue of importing well-educated labor came up then, too... and he wasn't the only one who brought it up. California is going to keep falling behind as long as we keep raiding our school systems for money
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry." That's because you are stupid. Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does. Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games. The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).
I liked your post until I saw what I quoted in bold-faced type. Rice is in fact NOT a member of the Ivy League. Goddamnit, people, look up your facts before you call someone *else* stupid. Here are the 8 Ivy League schools, in no particular fcsking order.
Harvard
Dartmouth
Cornell
Pennsylvania
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Princeton
Don't argue with me if you don't believe this -- just read the fucking history. The term "Ivy League" has been distorted from it's original(and still valid, in the right circles) meaning. I say this partially because I go to Dartmouth. I'm not a snob, though -- I think that there are several non-Ivy League schools that are better than Dartmouth...MIT, Berkeley, and Rice come to mind. I think all three of those(maybe only two, I can't remember) are ranked higher in Mathematics, which is my area.
~jared
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