Is DC Really the 4th Worst City for New Graduates?

Earlier this year we published a feature on the rise of the
“permatern,”

which became one of our most popular Web stories of all time.
It seems the inability
to secure a decent job in one’s chosen field, instead resorting
to slogging through
low-paying internship after low-paying internship, struck a
chord with many readers.
Now, supposedly, a new trend is on the rise, according to a
survey by the website
Seeking Arrangement, which ranks DC as one of the worst cities
in America for new
college graduates. Seeking Arrangement, which calls itself an
“elite sugar daddy dating
site” for those “seeking mutually beneficial arrangements,”
reports that since 2009
the number of new members between the ages of 21 and 24 joining
the site has spiked
in June. Most of the new members were female and just out of
college, and 30 percent
came from 20 cities in particular—including the District, which
landed fourth on the
list, behind Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Detroit. (Baltimore
comes in at number
nine.)

Ickiness of the idea aside, the findings are somewhat
problematic. Seeking Arrangement
cites a statistic from Forbes that states only 40 percent of
graduates from the country’s
top 100 schools can find work in their chosen field. But the
survey’s findings contradict
an article published this May by Forbes that rounds up the ten
best cities for college
graduates—and includes Washington, DC, as well as other cities
on Seeking Arrangement’s
list, including Atlanta, St. Louis, and
Seattle.

So, is relying on sugar daddies a real trend among recent female college grads? We
highly doubt it. But it seems finding gainful employment after graduating from
college continues to be a source of anxiety for many young people.

See Seeking Arrangement’s full list below.

The 20 Worst Cities for New Grads in America—New Grad Membership June ’12 & ’13

Tanya Pai