In your student years, you might happily live in your corner of an eight-person shoebox, waiting your turn for a weekly shower and learning to stack tall piles of dirty dishes in the smallest possible footprint. But researchers found that the average size of affordable rental for a college graduate in Tucson is just 645 square feet.

MORE NEWS: Here are the jobs that pay more in Arizona than any other state

As a graduate, both your professional lifestyle and your dignity call for a little bit more. But burdened with student debt and up against a national housing crisis, graduates are making some tough choices. “A lot of people are just trying to catch up,” Orlando renter Daniel Levine told WESH. “You know, they just got into their profession. I have a friend that is an attorney, and it’s just like, ‘I’m drowning in debt, and I can’t really afford to live downtown.’ So he moved back in with his parents, and he’s saving money.”

Across the U.S., rent levels are 22% higher than pre-pandemic levels, and half of renters have been stuck with rents they can’t afford. But neither rent costs, wages nor housing availability are the same all over, so new entrants to the job market must balance potential earnings against the number and cost of local rental listings when figuring out where to settle.

To help you find the right direction, Career.io has found which cities have the most and least rentals available at an affordable rate, given the local average graduate wage — and the cities where you’ll get the most square footage for your graduate paycheck.

Key Findings

  • In Shreveport, Louisiana, 85.40% of available properties are affordable on the local average graduate salary — the best availability of any city.
  • There are no affordable properties available to the graduate on average salary in Irvine (California), Santa Fe (New Mexico) or the New Jersey cities of Paterson and Elizabeth.
  • The biggest average property available on the local average graduate salary is in Frisco, Texas (1,509 sq. ft.)
  • The smallest average property available on the average graduate salary is in Honolulu, Hawaii (395 sq. ft.) The average size of affordable rental for a college graduate in Tucson is just 645 square feet.