Rochester or Ithaca for Grad School? (motel, jobs, medical)

[Stockholmaren]

I'm currently in the process of applying for grad school (MBA) and I'm considering Cornell in Ithaca and University of Rochester. Cornell is the better school of course, but what worries me a bit about Ithaca is that it's so small and would be difficult for my wife to find a job in case she would have to. Right now she'll be able to continue to work remotely with her current employer, but if she were to lose that job, it seems that it would be easier to find a new job in Rochester than in the Ithaca area unless you commute a great distance.

What would you suggest to do and what are your opinions on the two areas? Your advice would be greatly appreciated!

[melkat]

What does she do? She may want to start investigating jobs in both areas to see what the need is..the economy in Rochester for jobs isn't that great (but probably better than Ithaca ) I love Rochester so of course that would be my pick

[I'minformed2]

Rochester's job market is a major mixed bag right now. The large companies (Kodak, Xerox, and to a lesser degree Baucsh&Lomb) aren't doing to great and have cut quite a few jobs in the past several years. Meanwhile, there are many small and midsized high-tech companies that are growing and adding jobs; mostly in the medical research and other technolagy related fields. The loss of relatively high paying blue collar job at Kodak coupled with the growth of the smaller and midsized companies is basically giving Rochester a flat job growth rate right now. The University of Rochester is now the top employer in the region as of 2005 (and after 100 years of Kodak having that distinction) so overall I would say "transitional", would be the right word to describe Rochester's economy. It's not doing as well as it was in the 70's and 80's (when it was the only ray of hope in Upstate NY and the great lakes), but it's also not nearly as bad as the other upstate ny and great lakes metros were durring that time period either.