Drew Dietrich, Deputy Director
Tallahassee is known for many things – endless outdoor adventures, Southern Hospitality, unrivaled festivals, and you guessed it, college football.
But hiding just beneath the surface is a little known truth – there’s an awful lot of knowledgeable and skilled people walking around.
In 2020, Tallahassee ranked as the 17th most educated Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States. Bear in mind, that’s out of the largest 150 MSA’s, putting us squarely in the top 11%.
We’re home to FSU, FAMU, TCC, and Lively – four dynamic, thriving, and class-leading higher education institutions. At times, we have upwards of 60,000 students in our community – and that’s not counting alumni.
But it’s not just quantity of learning – its quality.
Tallahassee ranked #2 for highest average university quality, behind only Trenton, NJ (which happens to be home to a certain Ivy Leaguer – Princeton). When you put that into perspective – we’re the 139th largest MSA in the nation…but we are in the top two in quality. That’s better than Boston (home of MIT and Harvard); the Bay area (Stanford, Cal-Berkeley); and the research triangle (Duke, UNC, NC State) – to name a few.
It is upon this intellectual bedrock that our community is grounded. We have the first and only college of entrepreneurship in the United States (Jim Moran College), the #1 HBCU in the nation (FAMU), #19 Best Public University (FSU), oh and the #1 Best College for Associates Degrees (TCC). Not too shabby.
But wait, there’s more.
Not one to rest on our laurels– there are a number of dynamic projects coming soon – the 40,000 square North Florida Innovation Labs incubator and the new 125,000 square foot Interdisciplinary Research & Commercialization Building (IRCB), both at Innovation Park, also home to several centers of excellence, including the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. We’re building the foundation to cultivate and maintain a best-in-class innovation ecosystem. We don’t buy intellectual capital – here, it’s home-grown.
Resources and research – we have it in abundance.
We are showing the region, and the world, that Tallahassee is where companies come to innovate and grow, creating cutting-edge technologies and world-leading products.
We don’t just have intellectual capital, we are an intellectual Capital. We’re pushing the boundaries of innovation and science, particularly in the field of Magnetics. So much so, we’re more than just the Capital of Florida, we’re the Magnetic Capital of the World.
The Tallahassee-Leon County Office of Economic Vitality (OEV) is pleased to announce the calendar of events for the 33rd Annual Big Bend Minority Enterprise Development (MED) Week, scheduled to take place from October 3 to 8, 2025. This week-long celebration features workshops and networking opportunities designed to empower entrepreneurs, foster economic growth, and connect participants […]
The Office of Economic Vitality is proud to join Florida State University’s newly formed Magnetic Capital Research Advisory Council, a strategic group of business, industry, finance, and community leaders working to strengthen the region’s position as a global hub for magnetic technologies and innovation. This council will advise FSU’s Office of Research on initiatives that […]