Weekend Roundup

Get your butts in the theaters: There are too many great shows to see thisweekend!

Y'all. The Academy Awards nominations came out this week, and I realized my Oscar radar is seriously in need of repair. I've only seen three of the Best Picture nominees, and I didn't even know there was a Kung Fu Panda 2!

What I'm sayin' is: It's time to find your favorite theater in town and start checking off the movies from the big list. (Start with The Artist is my best advice to you.)

Movie theaters aren't the only theaters in town, of course. This weekend, we have lots going on in music venues and traditional theaters as well. All of them will keep you warm AND allow you to be "social" whilst watching your favorite entertainment.

FronteraFest, Austin's favorite experimental fringe theater fest, is now in full swing. The Long Fringe productions open Thursday at various theaters around the city like Salvage Vanguard and Blue Theatre, and you'll have four opportunities each to catch new works from companies like Trouble Puppet Theater and Poison Apple Initiative as well as individuals like Annie La Ganga and Christy McBrayer. With all the options available to you, you're sure to find at least one show and one theater to fit your weekend fancy.

ZACH Theatre opens their latest straight-from-Broadway production this weekend as well. Next to Normal is the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical about a family suffering from the effects of bipolar disorder. Austin favorite Meredith McCall plays the family matriarch, the role that won Alice Ripley a Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical. Come see one of our city's most talented actresses knock this performance out of the ballpark.

And if it's Broadway musicals you love, you're in luck. Elphaba and Galinda are punching everyone in the face with their show-stopping numbers in Wicked over at Bass Concert Hall. Sure it's over-the-top, but it's undeniably catchy and fun to see the characters you know from The Wizard of Oz in a brand new light. You might as well give in to it and get ready to cry and laugh and sing with that drunk lady two rows down from you. She's not afraid to sing along, so why should you be?

If electro-funk is more your speed, there's an awesome music benefit festival happening this weekend at The Parish. Oh Snap! Festival is a two and a half day music festival organized by friends of Sergio Machado to raise funds for his memorial scholarship. Machado was a foreign exchange student at Southwestern University who was killed by a drunk driver in his home country of Mozambique after graduation. Oh Snap! honors Machado's love of music and raises money to fund other awesome foreign exchange students' college educations.

One of our favorite multi-purpose venues, the ND at 501 Studios, is hosting an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime reunion for the historic Austin indie rock station, K-NACK. For two nights, bands like Sixteen Deluxe, Sincola, bo bud greene, Seed and Wannabes will take to the stage once again — some after 15 years apart — for an epic reunion, re-imagining the iconic sounds of alternative Austin radio. K-NACK DJs will be in attendance to introduce the bands and reminisce on the past. Anyone who loves music will want to be here for this special event.

Of course, if it's movies you want, there's lots going on at the Alamo Drafthouse of course. On Sunday, Sarah Pitre hosts a Girlie Night special Dance Movie Marathon at the Ritz. Starting at 1pm, you can take in the grandeur of the hate-that-you-love-them movies: Center Stage, Strictly Ballroomand Step Up 2: The Streets. A live dance team will be present to show you the moves in person in case you want to join the fun.

Or you can always go at your own pace, find your own movie theater and enjoy your movies in peace and quiet. I'm telling you: Start with The Artist and work your way down from there. It's going to change the way you see all the other ones.

Hooray for the Theater!

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Study This

Austin is the No. 7 most educated city in the country, says Forbes

Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

UT Austin gets a lot of praise, but this study includes degrees from everywhere — as long as the recipient lives in Texas.

Austin and San Antonio don't get all the same opportunities as the even larger cities in Texas, but in a recent study they prove they're prepared. Both made the top 10 in Forbes Advisor's "Most Educated Cities In The U.S." list: San Antonio was No. 4, and Austin was No. 7.

Other Texas cities made the list of 100, but some fell surprisingly far behind. Dallas made No. 20, followed by Houston at No. 79 and Fort Worth at No. 93. In some even more surprising twists, the smaller city of Garland was the fourth in Texas at No. 26, and El Paso, Corpus Christi, and Laredo all beat Houston.

This study compared the 100 largest cities in the country as of the 2021 census, using metrics like high school dropout rate, percentage of adults age 25 and older with some college, but no degree, undergraduate college completion rate, and percentage of adults age 25 and older with an advanced degree. There were also some lower-weighted metrics about equity, studying racial and gender college completion gaps.

Although many education studies fall into praising the University of Texas, this one considers education as a whole — while still mentioning the university once.

In San Antonio, the bachelor’s completion rate for people 25 and up was 67.30 percent, and 29.56 percent of people in that age group have advanced degrees. The study doesn't have much to say about educational opportunities in the city, focusing instead of its tourist potential. But it did note that the city had one of the smallest racial gaps for higher ed, which was only -5.49 percent. Its gender gap was 0.97 percent, and its high school dropout rate was 4.53 percent.

San Antonio's Trinity University did great in a Niche study that came out in early September. It was the No. 18 best small college in America, and topped the list entirely in Texas. Among bigger fish, it was also the No. 20 best liberal arts college in the country (and again the best in Texas), and made No. 4 in general for best colleges in Texas.

In Austin, 59.89 of people 25 or older completed Bachelor's degrees, and 22.76 percent completed advanced degrees. The racial gap was much worse at -10.87 percent. Its gender gap was a bit less than San Antonio's, at 0.69 percent, and its high school dropout rate was more at 7.56 percent.

Of course, this is where the study mentions UT, which is based in Austin. It made WalletHub's 2024 ranking of the best colleges and universities in Texas and earned the No. 2 spot; clinched the No. 6 spot in Niche's ranking of the best public universities in the country; and earned No. 2 in a list of best undergraduate programs for entrepreneurs by the Princeton Review, among other accolades.

Just breaking into the top 20, Dallas' Bachelor's degree completion rate was 57.05 percent, with 21.37 percent attaining advanced degrees. The racial and gender gaps were −14.99 percent and 1.64 percent, respectively. Much further down the list, Houston's Bachelor's degree completion rate was only 32.99 percent, and only 10.97% achieved advanced degrees. High school dropouts were at 8.90 percent, and the racial and gender gaps were −4.99 and 2.10 percent respectively.

Here are all the Texas cities on the list of 100, in order from most to least educated:

4. San Antonio
7. Austin
20. Dallas
26. Garland
49. El Paso
59. Corpus Christi
76. Laredo
79. Houston
81. Arlington
83. Irving

More information on the study by Forbes advisor, including full city rankings and expanded methodology, is available at forbes.com.

education universities