Kansas University’s graduation ceremonies are done for another year, but there’s still plenty of recent grads hanging around the city. Before you start thinking that they’re still here just because they are trying to remember where they parked their cars, know this: A new report has found that Lawrence is one of the more attractive cities in the country for recent college graduates.

The nonprofit economic research group AIER has ranked Lawrence as the No. 3 Smallest Metro Area in the country in its annual Employment Destinations Index. Lawrence ranked behind only Iowa City, and Ithaca, N. Y., in the category that measures metro areas with populations of less than 250,000 people. The Employment Destinations Index is geared toward helping college graduates figure out where to start a career.

Some of the reasons Lawrence ranked high in the study are interesting. One of them is Lawrence’s great wages. No, I didn’t have too much of the “punch” at the graduation reception. The report uses U.S. Census data from the American Community Survey program that measures people’s incomes based on their age and educational attainment. It found that the average wage for a 22- to 35-year-old with a BA degree in Lawrence was $51,732. That was the fifth-highest ranking among the 30 small communities that were ranked.

That statistic runs counter to the common narrative about wages in Lawrence. We’re generally thought to be a laggard in the area of wages. But that’s only true depending on what you measure. A lot of the wage consternation in Lawrence centers on the wages paid for jobs that are based in Lawrence. The Census data in this report doesn’t exactly measure that. It measures how much someone who lives in Lawrence makes regardless of where the job is located. In other words, a recent college grad who has a sweet job in JoCo but lives in Lawrence gets counted for this report.

One group that may not be surprised by this finding is local landlords. It appears they already have it figured out that college grads are making good money because the study also found that Lawrence college grads are paying a pretty penny in rent. The average monthly rent in Lawrence for a 22 to 35 year old with a BA degree was $1,252, according to the Census information. That was the fifth highest in the survey. Only Napa, Calif., Ocean City, N.J., Midland, Texas, and Santa Fe, N.M., had higher average rents. What was particularly interesting was how some Midwest college communities compared. The average rent in Columbia, Mo., was $865 a month, $960 in Bloomington, Ind., and just $822 a month in Iowa City.

One other interesting statistic had to do with public transportation and walkability of communities. It found that 6.9 percent of Lawrence commuters aren’t dependent on a car. That ranked 15th among the 30 communities ranked. But the numbers showed that percentage could be much higher. Ithaca, N.Y. ranked No. 1 with 27.7 percent who were not dependent on a car. Fellow Midwest neighbor Iowa City was No. 2 with 19.5 percent. In total, there were seven communities that were at 10 percent or above.

The one area that Lawrence ranked No. 1 on in the survey was the percentage of people 22 years old or older who have a bachelor’s degree. In Lawrence, that’s 53.1 percent of all people 22 and older. So, there really are a lot of college graduates here. As someone who came to school here 23 years ago and never did leave, the reason for it is clear: After a long graduation weekend, it really is hard to find your car in the Oread neighborhood.

In other news and notes from around town:

• We go from the Oread neighborhood to news of a large new child care center. (I’ll give you a moment to compare and contrast.) Indeed, a new 88-kid child care center has opened at 2333 Crestline Drive, which is the former location of Kindercare.

The Lawrence Child Development Center opened earlier this month. Teresa Prost is the owner of the business, and this is her second child care center. She has owned and operated the Carbondale Child Development Center in nearby Osage County for a number of years. But Prost has lived in Lawrence since 2002, and jumped at the chance to buy the building on Crestline Drive when it became available.

The business provides care for children ranging from infants to 12 year olds. She said she particularly wanted to provide infant care because that seems to be an area of the Lawrence child care market that is underserved.