Those city ranking lists, at least the ones I see, are usually a joke. Half my middle aged relatives and colleges friends went into tech and they all have great careers. Some work for companies located elsewhere but choose to stay living in Indy or the suburbs.

Any list that didn’t have Indy in the top 100 for tech jobs I’d be skeptical about. Granted, we might not have had a lot of primarily tech corporate HQs, but we have an amazing variety of businesses, some corp HQs, that have large tech divisions within them.

I do agree many likely stay for family. It becomes what one knows, especially if generational like me. However, I don’t really care if STEM folks want to stay or go. Having a degree doesn’t make one necessarily the smartest person and worth having around. For example, look at what having a large amount of STEM degrees has done to the cost-of-living in places like Seattle and the Bay Area. Absolutely asinine and only like that because a lot of these so called “smart” people have no common sense when it comes to debt to income ratios. I know a lot of this is a product of a country that pushes people going into massive debt, but still, I’m surprised so many intelligent people in one aspect of life have no problem becoming debt slaves for life to the banks and government (Higher income, home values mean huge taxes).

I don’t want cheap living for Indiana, but I do want affordable living. My job would pay me almost double in those areas I mentioned, but my house would cost triple or more from what I’ve seen on-line. I don’t want that to happen here.