Brainpower rankings usually identify the usual suspects: college towns like Boston, Washington, D.C.,  and the San Francisco Bay area. And to be sure, these places generally have the highest per capita education levels. However, it’s worthwhile to look at the metro areas that are gaining college graduates most rapidly; this is an indicator of momentum that is likely to carry over into the future.

To determine where college graduates are settling, demographer Wendell Cox analyzed the change in the number of holders of bachelor’s degrees and above between 2007 and 2012 in the 51 metropolitan statistical areas with over a million people (all saw gains). For the most part, the fastest-growing brain hubs are in the South and Intermountain West (which excludes the states on the Pacific Coast). Some of these places are usually not associated with the highest levels of academic achievement, and for the most, they still lag the national average in college graduation rates.

But times are changing, and educated people are increasingly heading to these metro areas, notably in the South, were job growth has been robust and the cost of living is far lower than in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York or Los Angeles. This includes New Orleans, which ties for first place on our list with San Antonio. The New Orleans metro area’s population of college graduates grew by 44,000 from 2007 to 2012, a 20.3% increase, nearly double the national average of 10.9%. (The percentage of college grads in the U.S. stood at 19.4% in 2012, up from 18% in 2007.)

New Orleans’ story, of course, is unique; the jump certainly is partly due to the return of evacuees to the city after Katrina, and some scoff that the region is destined to return to its historical pattern of exporting its educated young. But right now the American Community Survey data seems to indicate otherwise, as does the decision in recent years by numerous technology, videogame and media businesses to establish operations in the metro area, including General Electric, Paris-based Gameloft and the satellite communications company Globalstar, which in 2010 moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Covington, a prosperous suburb of the Crescent City.

What is happening in New Orleans, where I have worked as a consultant, is unique, but it also follows a broader pattern that we see in other areas. Unable to afford to settle long-term in traditional “brain centers,” educated people are increasingly looking for places that have strong economies but also many of the cultural and natural amenities associated with the traditional meccas for the educated. With housing prices that are half to a third of Silicon Valley or San Francisco, New Orleans offered educated workers, particularly younger ones, many of the things they look for, but at an affordable cost.

“For $65,000 a year in San Francisco you get a shared apartment and no car,” says long-time New Orleans tech entrepreneur Chris Reed. ”Here, you get great restaurants and clubs, and you get to have a car and your own nice apartment. It’s a no-brainer.”

Other cities with some of the same characteristics are also winning in the race to bring in more educated workers. Nowhere is this more true than in Texas, which is home to four of the top 12 metro areas on our list. Tops is co-first place San Antonio, which had a net gain of 76,000 college-educated people since 2007, or 20.3%.

Like New Orleans, the San Antonio area has traditionally lagged behind in attracting educated people; nearly one resident in six does not have a high school diploma. But the old Texas town also has many amenities that appeal to educated workers, notably great food and a good nightlife scene. In addition, it boasts one of the fastest-growing regional economies in the country, with expanding tech and energy businesses, something that may have a particular appeal in this still weak recovery.

“When the buzz starts … and hipsters start to get wise to the neighborhood assets that are here, once the hipsters get wind of it – you’ll have to beat them away with a stick,” says economic geographer Jim Russell.

Austin places third, which should come as no surprise — the area is home to the main campus of the University of Texas, boasts a thriving music scene and a strong technology infrastructure. Nor should the rapid growth of educated residents in sixth-ranked Houston, up 16% since 2007, which also enjoys low costs, an increasingly attractive cultural scene and one of the fastest growing hubs of dense urban living in the country. Dallas, also a fast-growing area, lands in 12th place on our list, boosting its college graduate population by 13%, or 175,000.

One of the more surprising metro areas in our top 10 is fifth place Louisville, Ky.-Ind. The home of Humana, it has a thriving health care sector, and also is strong in the food industry and logistics. It has seen a 16.2% increase in the number of educated residents.

Strong growth has also occurred in the Intermountain West, led by Denver (seventh) and Salt Lake City (eighth). Both areas have been beneficiaries of the migration of people and companies from California. This may also explain the growth of 11th place Phoenix, an area that has made remarkable strides since the disastrous days of the housing bust and is once again attracting migrants in larger numbers than any large metro area outside Texas.

So if these areas are leading the race to capture “talent,” who is lagging behind? Not surprising at the bottom of the list are a series of Rust Belt cities with relatively weak economies, led by last place Detroit, where the number of college-educated residents rose 4.1%. Its followed by Providence,  Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Boston, long styled as the “Athens” of America, ranks 47th on our list. Over the past five years Boston has gained some 98,000 college educated people, an increase of 7.2%, well below the national average. Beantown, of course, can always claim it has the highest “quality” brains but even in terms of percentage gains of people with graduate degrees it ranks only 41st .

The data show the universe of educated people is not becoming more “spiky” as some suggest, but is spreading out. This is true not only in terms of percentage growth, but in absolute numbers. Since 2007, for example, the Houston and Dallas metro areas have added more BAs than San Francisco-Oakland, and nearly twice as many as Boston. As a result, these and other such cities are gaining a critical mass in brainpower not widely recognized in the Eastern-dominated media.

At very least, we can say that the conventional wisdom favoring the traditional “brain” cities seems flawed. There will always be areas with more educated people per capita than others, if for no other reason than historical inertia and lack of migration, particularly among the less educated. But the clear pattern now is for brainpower, like population and jobs, to continue dispersing, largely to the South, the Southeast and the Intermountain West, with ramifications that will be felt in the economy in the decades ahead.

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: 2007-2012: CHANGE OF BA & HIGHER
2007 2012 Change % Rank
New Orleans. LA        172,965        216,970        44,005

20.3%

1

San Antonio, TX        300,114        376,445        76,331

20.3%

2

Austin, TX        382,119        477,058        94,939

19.9%

3

Nashville, TN        287,154        355,630        68,476

19.3%

4

Louisville, KY-IN        195,760        233,566        37,806

16.2%

5

Houston, TX        972,615     1,157,627      185,012

16.0%

6

Denver, CO        595,437        708,325      112,888

15.9%

7

Salt Lake City, UT        193,167        229,140        35,973

15.7%

8

Jacksonville, FL        221,907        258,893        36,986

14.3%

9

Raleigh, NC        278,754        324,318        45,564

14.0%

10

Phoenix, AZ        709,284        818,434      109,150

13.3%

11

Dallas-Fort Worth, TX     1,155,069     1,330,312      175,243

13.2%

12

Charlotte, NC-SC        348,923        401,116        52,193

13.0%

13

Baltimore, MD        589,874        677,837        87,963

13.0%

14

Rochester, NY        244,277        280,650        36,373

13.0%

15

Portland, OR-WA        479,207        549,825        70,618

12.8%

16

Birmingham, AL        187,094        214,201        27,107

12.7%

17

Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD     1,204,380     1,377,684      173,304

12.6%

18

San Diego, CA        631,996        722,819        90,823

12.6%

19

Columbus, OH        367,811        419,136        51,325

12.2%

20

Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI        774,669        881,581      106,912

12.1%

21

Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV     1,658,902     1,885,862      226,960

12.0%

22

Las Vegas, NV        257,886        293,001        35,115

12.0%

23

Indianapolis. IN        333,079        377,189        44,110

11.7%

24

San Francisco-Oakland, CA     1,251,139     1,414,393      163,254

11.5%

25

Memphis, TN-MS-AR        197,292        222,813        25,521

11.5%

26

Seattle, WA        814,902        918,119      103,217

11.2%

27

Oklahoma City, OK        210,720        237,329        26,609

11.2%

28

St. Louis,, MO-IL        521,047        586,547        65,500

11.2%

29

Pittsburgh, PA        456,717        513,838        57,121

11.1%

30

San Jose, CA        527,167        592,703        65,536

11.1%

31

Kansas City, MO-KS        410,109        460,391        50,282

10.9%

32

Miami, FL     1,058,815     1,186,398      127,583

10.8%

33

Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC        284,924        317,741        32,817

10.3%

34

Buffalo, NY        207,907        231,718        23,811

10.3%

35

Riverside-San Bernardino, CA        469,381        519,680        50,299

9.7%

36

Richmond, VA        205,014        226,912        21,898

9.7%

37

Los Angeles, CA     2,458,215     2,720,654      262,439

9.6%

38

Hartford, CT        276,002        305,100        29,098

9.5%

39

Chicago, IL-IN-WI     1,984,496     2,190,424      205,928

9.4%

40

Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL        496,826        544,121        47,295

8.7%

41

Milwaukee,WI        308,214        337,253        29,039

8.6%

42

New York, NY-NJ-PA     4,433,180     4,836,321      403,141

8.3%

43

Sacramento, CA        403,140        435,485        32,345

7.4%

44

Atlanta, GA     1,151,723     1,243,122        91,399

7.4%

45

Orlando, FL        379,636        409,263        29,627

7.2%

46

Boston, MA-NH     1,271,193     1,369,597        98,404

7.2%

47

Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN        393,076        419,714        26,638

6.3%

48

Cleveland, OH        380,479        405,731        25,252

6.2%

49

Providence, RI-MA        301,591        320,262        18,671

5.8%

50

Detroit,  MI        786,153        819,347        33,194

4.1%

51

Total   34,181,501   38,352,595   4,171,094

10.9%

Outside MMSAs   20,152,010   22,389,927   2,237,917

10.0%

United States   54,333,511   60,742,522   6,409,011

10.6%

Cross-posted at New Geography.