Overlooking “flyover country” could mean overlooking large pools of university graduates and skilled creatives whose numbers are rapidly growing and propelling cities and towns throughout the region to the nation’s highest ranks.
That is the opportunity presented in a new report, “Heartland of Talent 2025” prepared by Heartland Forward. The organization describes itself as “the nation's only think-and-do tank dedicated to advancing economic success in the middle of the country.” The 20 states it defines as the heartland cover the vast distance south from the Canadian border to the Gulf Coast and west from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama to Texas and the states due north of it.
The report uses two criteria to analyze “the geography of talent” in America in the years 2019 to 2023. One is educational – the share of adults who are college graduates. The other is occupational – the share of the workforce employed in knowledge, professional and creative occupations. Creatives comprise a range of professionals including IT, architecture and engineering, business and management, legal, healthcare, education, the arts, entertainment and sports.
Until recently, graduates and knowledge workers “became massively clustered in coastal superstar cities and tech hubs,” the report said. “There is reason to believe that this geography may now be shifting at the margins as those superstar cities and tech hubs come up against their limits to growth.” The Covid pandemic helped spur this trend.
“Overall, our findings document an ongoing shift in the geography of talent, with heartland metros doing better on both measures,” the report stated.
The 170 metros in the states that make up “the heartland” are home to some 104 million people, or almost one-third of the U.S. population, and produce almost $7.5 trillion in GDP – about 28% of total U.S. economic output.
The report found that some 39% of adults in large heartland metros have a college degree, compared to 41% in all large U.S. metros. Four heartland metros rank in the top 20 for college grads: Austin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, and Chicago.
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Eight of the top 20 small and medium-sized metros for college grads are also in the heartland: Ann Arbor, MI, Lawrence, KS, Iowa City, Bloomington, IL, Madison, WI, Columbia, MO, Ames, IA, and Bloomington, IN. The share of graduates in the populations of these cities ranges from 47.7% in Bloomington, IN to 60.2% in Ann Arbor. These shares are well above the 32.9% national average for small and medium-sized cities.
Furthermore, these shares increased significantly from 2019-2023, propelling six large heartland metros onto the list of the 20 fastest-growing metros for college grads. In Austin, the increase was 6%, 4.5% for Indianapolis, 4.3% for San Antonio, Grand Rapids (4.2%), Milwaukee (4.1%), Nashville (3.9%), and Dallas-Fort Worth (3.7%).
As for the creatives, the heartland could also brag about the six large metros it is home to that made it to the top 20 nationally. They include Austin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Columbus, Kansas City and St. Louis.
In small-to-medium size cities, creatives also have a significant share. “College towns have outsized performance on this measure, a trend that is especially pronounced for heartland metros,” the report said.
Heartland towns represented in the nation’s top 20 in the creatives category include Ann Arbor, Madison, Lawrence, Huntsville, and Columbia, MO. The share of the creative class in these towns’ populations ranged from 47.6% to 56.9%, and it is growing rapidly in each case.
The report notes that the upsurge in highly educated and creative residents of the heartland has stimulated a boost to the amenities towns and cities offer. The relative affordability of the region is another draw.
“A number of large and small metros in the heartland, especially leading college towns, have shown that they can compete effectively for talent,” the report commented. “That said, many other metros in the heartland and across the nation face significant challenges when it comes to attracting talent. The places that are doing the best have significant assets—research universities, signature natural amenities, well-endowed foundations, or anchor institutions like teaching hospitals and corporate headquarters that provide good jobs and invest in quality of life—to build on.”
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