Leslie Bridgers, Portland Press Herald - No matter what longtime residents might say about Portland being better before all the hotels and high-end shops, there’s no question that, on a national level, the city’s reputation as a desirable place to live has only grown since I moved here after graduating from Bowdoin in 2006.
Then, I was one of just a few members of my class from a different state who stayed in Maine, though I’ve since seen many more return, likely a result of Portland’s rising appeal and pandemic- and age-related priority shifts. But I had to wonder, as Portland’s gotten cooler to the outside world, if more Maine college students have been skipping the step of going to a bigger city and moving instead to the one right here.
Census data shows that, since the pandemic, Portland has drawn more recent college graduates to the city and more college-educated workers of all ages away from larger metro areas. And some surveys of Maine college seniors indicate that more have been choosing to stay in Maine after graduation.
Though it’s unclear where they came from, the portion of 18- to 24-year-old Portland residents with bachelor’s degrees grew 40% between 2018 and 2023 — double the national increase and triple that of Maine as a whole — according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s five-year American Community Surveys.
It also had the second-highest percentage of residents in their 20s (19.4%, after Tallahassee, Florida) among the 98 cities that apartment rental website ApartmentAdvisor assessed for its 2025 list of Best Cities for College Grads.