The aim was to determine the most attractive cities in Germany for university graduates, and Jena ranked top of the list along with Erlangen, a major city in Bavaria, with a score of 29 percent. They were ahead of Munich, the capital of Bavaria, where 25 percent of all employed people have tertiary education. Darmstadt in Hesse and Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg follow at 1 percent less. Jena attracts students from all over the world and has interesting jobs for them upon graduation, because research institutes and innovative companies choose a location in the orbit of universities. Career opportunities for graduates are many and varied at the numerous institutions with names like Fraunhofer, Max Planck and Leibniz, and well-known biotechnology companies, along with the Carl Zeiss Group and Jenoptik. And Jena has the trump card up its sleeve with more affordable housing than in other big university cities. (td)
