Rice leads Texas colleges on LinkedIn's first-ever career success ranking

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Rice University is the top Texas college on LinkedIn's best colleges for long-term career success report. Photo via Rice.edu

Houston’s Rice University leads the Texas schools in LinkedIn’s first-ever ranking of the 50 best U.S. colleges for long-term career success.

Rice appears at No. 31 in the ranking. Southern Methodist University, located in the Dallas suburb of University Park, lands at No. 37 and the University of Texas at Austin shows up at No. 46.

LinkedIn, a career networking site, says the ranking is based on exclusive data about alumni, such as job placement rates, advancement into senior-level jobs, post-graduate formation of startups, and pre-graduation internships.

“A four-year bachelor’s degree is a significant investment of time and money, especially as tuition costs rise and the job market shifts,” the LinkedIn report says. “For millions of Americans, the return on investment is worth it. Those who earn the degree can see an enduring impact on their earning potential and overall career trajectory.”

Where someone earns a degree can have an even bigger impact, according to LinkedIn, as graduates of top programs often land jobs more rapidly, build strong professional networks, and rise to leadership roles more quickly.

“Long-term success isn’t just about landing a great first job; it’s about sustained career growth and opportunity years after graduation,” Andrew Seaman, senior editor-at-large for jobs and career development at LinkedIn News, told Fortune. “For this list, that means looking at how well a school sets alumni up for the long haul.”

Here’s a breakdown of some of the data about the three Texas schools on the LinkedIn list:

Rice University

  • Top industries of graduates: Technology, business consulting, higher education
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Houston, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City
  • Notable skills: MATLAB programming language, engineering design, data science

Southern Methodist University

  • Top industries of graduates: Financial services, business consulting
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Dallas, New York City, Los Angeles
  • Most notable skills: AMPL programming language, Avid iNews content creation system, data science

University of Texas at Austin

  • Top industries of graduates: Technology, medical practices, advertising
  • Top post-graduation destinations: Austin, Dallas, Houston
  • Most notable skills: SOLIDWORKS computer-aided design software, architecture, Avid Media Composer video editing software
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H-Town jumped 43 spots into No. 97 this year. Photo via Getty Images

Houston jumps significantly on annual list of best places to live in 2024

by the numbers

Things are looking a little brighter for Houston as the city was recently named among the top 100 best places to live in U.S. News and World Report's "Best Places to Live" list for 2024-2025.

Previously, H-Town had shockingly plummeted toward the bottom of the list as No. 140 in the 2023-2024 rankings. But the latest report has placed Houston at No. 97, suggesting substantial improvements over the last year.

U.S. News annually measures 150 top American cities for their livability and ranks them based on four major indexes: quality of life, value, desirability, and job market.

New for the 2024-2025 report, U.S. News updated its methodology to analyze city-based data rather than metropolitan area data. Secondly, the report's annual survey decided to place greater weight on a city's "value and job market" while "weights for desirability and quality of life took a slight dip" on the grading scale.

"Rising concerns about career prospects, housing affordability and increased cost of goods and services are reflected in this year’s rankings," said U.S. News loans expert and reporter Erika Giovanetti in a press release. "While quality of life remains the top priority for many Americans, a city’s value and job market are becoming increasingly important for those looking for a place to live."

There's many factors that draw folks to Houston, among them our city's diversity, the highly esteemed schools, top universities, and much more. Houston is also a great place for retirees looking to settle down without compromising on the big city lifestyle. The city truly has something for everyone.

The good news continues: Houston additionally moved up two spots to take No. 8 on the report's Best Place to Live in Texas list for 2024. The Bayou City ranked No. 10 last year.

Elsewhere in Texas
The recent focus on city-based data was likely a major factor that fueled Houston's improvement in the statewide and national rankings, but it also favorably shifted nine other Texas cities.

Austin – which previously ranked No. 40 in last year's rankings – became the only city to represent the Lone Star State among the top 10 best places to live in 2024. The Texas Capital jumped up 31 spots to claim No. 9 nationally, due to its "high desirability and job market scores," the report said.

Three cities in the Rio Grande Valley also ranked higher than Houston, suggesting that South Texas may be a better place to live than East Texas. The border towns of McAllen (No. 48) and Brownsville (No. 87) climbed into the overall top 100 this year after formerly ranking No. 137 and No. 134 last year. Meanwhile, Corpus Christi moved up from No. 132 last year to No. 77 in 2024.

Naples, Florida won the gold medal as the No. 1 best place to live in the U.S. in 2024. Rounding out the top five are Boise, Idaho (No. 2); Colorado Springs, Colorado (No. 3); Greenville, South Carolina (No. 4); and Charlotte, North Carolina (No. 5).

Here's how other Texas cities faired in 2024's Best Places to Live report:

  • No. 62 – El Paso (up from No. 128 last year)
  • No. 89 – San Antonio (up from No. 103 last year)
  • No. 95 – Dallas (up from No. 113 last year)
  • No. 99 – Beaumont (up from No. 131 last year)
  • No. 107 – Killeen (up from No. 122 last year)
The full report and its methodology can be found on realestate.usnews.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

For better or for worse, automation is going to have an affect on specific jobs in Houston. Getty Images

New report identifies the Houston jobs that are most likely going to be affected by automation

the robots are coming

A new report from UpSkill Houston, a workforce initiative of the Greater Houston Partnership, puts the implications of workplace automation into stark focus. According to the report, more than 50 percent of middle-skill jobs in the Houston area face a higher-than-average risk of being upset by automation.

Peter Beard, who leads UpSkill Houston and is senior vice president for workforce development at the Greater Houston Partnership, says this means technology will "get embedded even more in the workplace than it's ever been before. … People's jobs will change because they have to work alongside technology. And there will be some jobs that get displaced because of that technology."

"Robots are coming," he adds, "but they're not going to replace us. We're going to have to figure out how to work beside them."

Middle-skill jobs require less than a four-year bachelor's degree but more than a high school diploma. In other words, jobs fitting into this middle ground might demand a two-year associate's degree or a training certificate from a technical school.

The report, released July 16, points out that middle-skill occupations in manufacturing and construction, for instance, face a high risk of disruption as companies adopt technologies that automate tasks, such as prefabrication of building materials. By contrast, the report notes, automation places jobs in the health care and service sectors in far less jeopardy because they generally rely on tasks that can't easily be automated. For example, jobs in health care often require social skills that can't be replicated through automation, which includes artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning.

However, jobs in health care aren't entirely immune from shifts in the workplace. The report indicates jobs in workforce segments like health care, sales and office support, IT, management, and drafting now require a medium or high level of digital skills.

That being said, all workers — regardless of their industry, occupation, or education — must embrace solid digital skills in order to succeed in the workforce, the report states. Beard says that to compete in today's workforce, a high school graduate must be proficient in Microsoft's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs as well as in a customer relationship management platform like Salesforce.

The findings in the UpSkill Houston report come at a pivotal time for the Houston economy, given the job-slashing double whammy of the coronavirus pandemic and the oil slump. The pandemic "has accelerated and accentuated a fundamental change that has been underway — a change in the education and skills needed to be successful in the workforce today and into the future," the report states.

That change poses particular challenges for low-skill and middle-skill workers in the Houston area, according to the report. The report recommends that workforce development stakeholders, including employers, schools, and community organizations, build a regional "framework" aimed at ramping up skillsets so workers can seize increasingly elevated career opportunities.

"It all starts with the employer. The employer is in the best position to know what skills they need today and what skills they are likely to need tomorrow," Beard says. "Fundamentally, we're trying to create a supply chain of talent that meets the needs of our economy and the needs of our employers."

But that takes employers collaborating with schools to ensure those skills are being taught, he says, and employers and schools motivating students to consider jobs that incorporate those skills.

Beard assigns those skills to four categories:

  • Technical skills
  • Digital skills
  • Soft skills, such as communication
  • Problem-solving skills

"This whole push we've had that everyone should go to college and get a four-year degree has made folks consider jobs that don't require a four-year college degree to be menial," Beard says. "That same mentality has also permeated the employers. How many job descriptions have we seen that put a four-year degree requirement on them but that don't require four years of college education?"

New study shows Houston has more job openings than any other Texas city. Photo by Tim Leviston/Getty Images

Houston becomes job capital of Texas with highest number of openings in the state

Get to work

As all good Houstonians know, the Bayou City reigns as the energy capital of the world. But, as it turns out, Houston also ranks as the job capital of Texas.

In October, a daily average of 4,188 job openings were listed in Houston — more than any other place in Texas. That's according to a review by data-mining company Thinkum of online job postings at thousands of companies.

In terms of the sheer number of daily job postings, Houston ranked fifth among U.S. cities in October, according to Thinkum. Seattle held the No. 1 spot (10,291 average daily job listings).

Thinkum's top 20 also included Austin (No. 6), with a daily average of 3,227 job postings, and Dallas (No. 12), with 2,685.

The abundance of job listings in Houston can be attributed, in part, to its status as one of the top U.S. metro areas for corporate relocations and expansions, as ranked by Site Selection magazine. In 2017, the Houston welcomed 196 new and expanded corporate facilities.

"Houston is the most diverse city in the U.S. and companies thrive in our region. We are powered by a highly skilled and well-trained talent base that enjoys an excellent quality of life," Bob Harvey, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, said in March.

Career website LinkedIn says hiring in the Houston metro area climbed 14.3 percent in September 2018 compared with September 2017. On a seasonally adjusted basis (removing predictable variations for seasonal hiring), hiring went up 0.8 percent from August to September, according to LinkedIn.

That's good news for the Houston area, as the unemployment rate in September was 4.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with 3.4 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth and 2.9 percent in Austin.

A February report from Taylor Smith Consulting noted that the Houston economy had been in recovery mode after the collapse in oil prices and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. However, one expert says Houston has now mostly bounced back from the economic slump.

Helping fuel Houston's economic recovery are initiatives like Houston Exponential, a new nonprofit designed to accelerate startup growth and, as a result, job growth. Formation of Houston Exponential was announced in October.

"The world calls Houston a knowledge capital because of the incredible concentration of ideas and innovation in our great city," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in October. "Technology innovation and a vibrant startup community are key drivers to Houston's present as well as our future. Through [Houston Exponential], we will create new, high-paying jobs, grow our startup and technology community, make accessing entrepreneurship capital available to all of our citizens, improve our quality of life, and lead this culture of innovation that inspires each and every one of us."

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.

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NRG inks new virtual power plant partnership to meet surging energy demands

Powering Up

Houston-based NRG Energy recently announced a new long-term partnership with San Francisco-based Sunrun that aims to meet Texas’ surging energy demands and accelerate the adoption of home battery storage in Texas. The partnership also aligns with NRG’s goal of developing a 1-gigawatt virtual power plant by connecting thousands of decentralized energy sources by 2035.

Through the partnership, the companies will offer Texas residents home energy solutions that pair Sunrun’s solar-plus-storage systems with optimized rate plans and smart battery programming through Reliant, NRG’s retail electricity provider. As new customers enroll, their stored energy can be aggregated and dispatched to the ERCOT grid, according to a news release.

Additionally, Sunrun and NRG will work to create customer plans that aggregate and dispatch distributed power and provide electricity to Texas’ grid during peak periods.

“Texas is growing fast, and our electricity supply must keep pace,” Brad Bentley, executive vice president and president of NRG Consumer, said in the release. “By teaming up with Sunrun, we’re unlocking a new source of dispatchable, flexible energy while giving customers the opportunity to unlock value from their homes and contribute to a more resilient grid

Participating Reliant customers will be paid for sharing their stored solar energy through the partnership. Sunrun will be compensated for aggregating the stored capacity.

“This partnership demonstrates the scale and strength of Sunrun’s storage and solar distributed power plant assets,” Sunrun CEO Mary Powell added in the release. “We are delivering critical energy infrastructure that gives Texas families affordable, resilient power and builds a reliable, flexible power plant for the grid.”

In December, Reliant also teamed up with San Francisco tech company GoodLeap to bolster residential battery participation and accelerate the growth of NRG’s virtual power plant network in Texas.

In 2024, NRG partnered with California-based Renew Home to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 to help households manage and lower their energy costs. At the time, the company reported that its 1-gigawatt VPP would be able to provide energy to 200,000 homes during peak demand.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Rice scientist earns $600K NSF award to study distractions in digital age

fresh funding

Rice University psychologist Kirsten Adam has received a $600,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to research how visual distractions like phone notifications, flashing alerts, crowded screens and busy workspaces can negatively impact focus—and how the brain works to try to regain it.

The highly competitive five-year NSF grants are given to career faculty members with the potential to serve as academic models and leaders in research and education. Adam’s work will aim to clarify how the brain refocuses in the age of screens, instant gratification and other lingering distractions. The funding will also be used to train graduate students in advanced cognitive neuroscience methods, expand access to electroencephalography (EEG) and for public data sharing.

“Kirsten is a valued member of the School of Social Sciences, and we are thrilled that she has been awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER,” Rachel Kimbro, dean of social sciences, said in a news release. “Because distractions continue to increase all around us, her research is timely and imperative to understanding their widespread impacts on the human brain.”

In Adam’s lab, participants complete simplified visual search tasks while their brain activity is recorded using EEG, allowing researchers to measure attention shifts in real time. This process then captures the moment attention is drawn from a goal and how much effort it takes to refocus.

According to Rice, Adam’s work will test long-standing theories about distraction. The research is meant to have real-world implications for jobs and aspects of everyday life where attention to detail is key, including medical imaging, airport security screening and even driving.

“At any given moment, there’s far more information in the world than our brains can process,” Adam added in the release. “Attention is what determines what reaches our awareness and what doesn’t.”

Additionally, the research could inform the design of new technologies that would support focus and decision-making, according to Rice.

“We’re not trying to make attention limitless,” Adam added. “We’re trying to understand how it actually works, so we can stop designing environments and expectations that fight against it.”

12 Houston climatetech startups join Greentown Labs' growing incubator

Startup Talk

More than 40 climatetech startups joined the Greentown Labs Houston community in the second half of 2025, 12 of which hail from the Bayou City.

The companies are among a group of nearly 70 total that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in Q3 and Q4.

The new companies that have joined the Houston incubator specialize in a variety of clean energy applications, from green hydrogen-producing water-splitting cycles to drones that service wind turbines.

The local startups that joined Greentown Houston include:

  • Houston-based Wise Energie, which delivers turnkey microgrids that blend vertical-axis wind, solar PV, and battery storage into a single, silent system.
  • The Woodlands-based Resollant, which is developing compact, zero-emissions hydrogen and carbon reactors to provide low-cost, scalable clean hydrogen and high-purity carbon for the energy and manufacturing sectors.
  • Houston-based ClarityCastle, which designs and manufactures modular, soundproof work pods that replace traditional drywall construction with reusable, low-waste alternatives made from recycled materials.
  • Houston-based WattSto Energy, which manufactures vanadium redox flow batteries to deliver long-duration storage for both grid-scale projects and off-grid microgrids.
  • Houston-based AMPeers, which delivers advanced, high-temperature superconductors in the U.S. at a fraction of traditional costs.
  • Houston-based Biosimo, which is developing bio-based platform chemicals, pioneering sustainable chemistry for a healthier planet and economy.
  • Houston-based Ententia, which offers purpose-built, generative AI for industry.
  • Houston-based GeoKiln Energy Innovation, which is developing a new way to produce clean hydrogen by accelerating natural geologic reactions in iron-rich rock formations using precision electrical heating.
  • Houston-based Timbergrove, which builds AI and IoT solutions that connect and optimize assets—boosting visibility, safety, and efficiency.
  • Houston-based dataVediK, which combines energy-domain expertise with advanced machine learning and intelligent automation to empower organizations to achieve operational excellence and accelerate their sustainability goals.
  • Houston-based Resonant Thermal Systems, which uses a resonant energy-transfer (RET) system to extract critical minerals from industrial and natural brines without using membranes or grid electricity.
  • Houston-based Torres Orbital Mining (TOM),which develops autonomous excavation systems for extreme environments on Earth and the moon, enabling safe, data-driven resource recovery and laying the groundwork for sustainable off-world industry.

Other startups from around the world joined the Houston incubator in the same time period, including:

More than 100 startups joined Greentown this year, according to an end-of-year reflection shared by Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter.

Flatter joined Greentown in the top leadership role in February 2025. She succeeded former CEO and president Kevin Knobloch, who stepped down in July 2024.

"I moved back to the United States in March 2025 after six years overseas—2,000 miles, three children, and one very patient husband later. Over these months, I’ve had the chance to hear from the entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, and partners who make this community thrive. What I’ve experienced has left me brimming with urgent optimism for the future we’re building together," she said in the release.

According to Flatter, Greentown alumni raised more than $2 billion this year and created more than 3,000 jobs.

"Greentown startups and ecosystem leaders—from Boston, Houston, and beyond—are showing that we can move further and faster together. That we don’t have to choose between more energy or lower emissions, or between increasing sustainability and boosting profit. I call this the power of 'and,'" Flatter added. "We’re working for energy and climate, innovation and scale, legacy industry and startups, prosperity for people and planet. The 'and' is where possibility expands."

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCaptialHTX.com.

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