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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Alexandria has been ranked the second-best mid-sized U.S. city for graduates starting their careers in 2026, according to an annual ranking published by CoworkingCafe, a coworking-space platform that also produces market research.
The ranking scores cities only against others in their population bracket. Among mid-sized cities — those with populations between 150,000 and 400,000 — Alexandria placed second, behind neighboring Arlington at No. 1. The report described Alexandria as the bracket's biggest gainer, writing that it climbed four places on a roughly $7,600 increase in median graduate income, now near $94,000, and a five-percentage-point rise in degree attainment among young residents, to 62 percent. The study also credited a 7.5 percent share of local jobs suited to recent graduates and employer-based health coverage of about 71 percent.
In her daily video message to residents Monday, Mayor Alyia Gaskins spotlighted the result. "I wanted to share some good news, because honestly we could all use a lot more of it," she said, summarizing the survey and the factors behind the ranking — the income gains, livability, health coverage, and city programs such as graduate internships and a new business accelerator for tech startups.
Gaskins described the city as moving "up two spaces" from the prior study. The CoworkingCafe report itself states Alexandria climbed four places. The mayor also cited a separate recognition — a Condé Nast listing among top small cities — as evidence of the city's livability; that award is distinct from the CoworkingCafe methodology, which is built on federal data rather than reader or editorial picks.
The ranking draws on figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, weighting employment, income, cost of living, and lifestyle measures. It is a marketing-oriented study rather than an academic or government one, though it relies on public data sources.
The cost-of-living caveat
Gaskins was candid about what the ranking does not resolve. "One of the things that prevents us from getting in the number one spot is the high cost of living here," she said, tying the point to the city's housing agenda. She pointed to the city's Housing 2040 plan, which she described as recently passed and as a comprehensive framework addressing everything from homelessness to homeownership, and urged residents to read both about the new recognition and about the city's workforce-development and housing programs. The City Council approved the plan at its June 13 public hearing; the ordinance formally incorporating it into the city's Comprehensive Plan is up for its first reading at the council's June 23 legislative meeting, a final procedural step before adoption.
The cost-of-living point tracks with the underlying data. CoworkingCafe's methodology penalizes higher regional price levels, and the broader Washington region carries elevated costs. The same report also flagged a regional headwind the mayor did not mention: federal workforce reductions in 2025, which the study said pushed youth unemployment in Washington, D.C., to 8 percent and could create spillover effects across the D.C. metro, including its Virginia suburbs.
Context
Arlington has topped the mid-sized bracket in the ranking, and the two Northern Virginia neighbors share many of the same structural advantages: high degree attainment, strong graduate incomes, and a dense regional job market. Both also sit within a metro economy now absorbing significant federal job losses, a dynamic that has reshaped the region's employment picture over the past year.
The CoworkingCafe ranking and its full methodology are available on the firm's website.
