BALTIMORE (WJZ)– A new Census report shows Baltimore is one of the fastest growing cities for professionals.

Gigi Barnett explains what makes Charm City so attractive.

Maryland’s top-tier universities give reason to move to the area, but a new Census report released found that people with college degrees want to stay in Baltimore.

Over the last decade, Census workers tracked cities with the biggest growth in the number of adults with college degrees.

Charleston, S.C. is at the top of the heap, but Baltimore is number five.

“It’s sandwiched between so many different things, and there is so much to do.” Baltimore resident Sharon Davis said.

“When your number one employer is Johns Hopkins, that tells you something about the region,” economist Anirban Basu said.

Basu works with the Sage Policy Group and he says there are a number of reasons why Baltimore attracts the highly educated. A big one is location.

“The East Coast is the largest concentration of economic activity in America,” Basu said. “Here we are in Baltimore, linked to the rest of the the East Coast by I-95 and I-83. We have a lot going for this region.”

Another reason why Baltimore may be on the list is the housing market.

Basu says professionals know if they buy in a more expensive city, that could mean living on a shoestring budget.

“Our friends live in Manhattan and when they come to visit they say their apartments are the size of our living room,” Baltimore resident Brigid Darragh said. ”We have a deck and a garage, and we live a block from the water.”

Experts say because of technology, the highly educated could live almost anywhere. Because professionals flock to a handful of large cities, those areas could see an economic turnaround sooner.

Experts say another reason why professionals may be drawn to Maryland is because the state was ranked number one in education for the last three years.