Weekend Roundup

Beat the summertime delirium this weekend with these non-Olympics activities

Yeah, we get it, guys. Now can you give somebody else a shot?
Everyone screams for the 6th Annual Austin Ice Cream Festival.
Photo by Jon Shapley

It's been a weird week to be an American, hasn't it?

Our Olympians are tearing it up over in London and acting like typical obnoxious Americans. People are lining up outside of fast food restaurants to show their mutual love of fried food and intolerance. And the stars of Twilight are just messing with our hearts!

It's gotta be the heat, man. It's just messing with our minds. Making us act crazy.

Well, we're just delirious as y'all are, so we're posting the things we're the most excited about for the coming weekend, along with what we'll be watching of the Olympics when we can't peel ourselves up off of our couches to go outside.

Friday night, our best suggestion is to head over to Hyde Park Theatre and watch their latest production, Tigers Be Still. Hyde Park is perhaps the best theatre in town to see what's happening in modern playwrighting, and Kim Rosenstock's fantstical play about a tiger that escapes the zoo and comes to live in a chaotic, depressed family's house is no exception. Everyone is raving about it, and it's about time you went to go support some fun, live theatre, isn't it?

Otherwise, it's the opening night of Track and Field and the finals of men's Trampoline on the Olympics. Huh.

Saturday, you better get out of the house and fill your gullet with frozen happiness at the 6th Annual Austin Ice Cream Festival at Fiesta Gardens. (Lactose intolerants and vegans are excluded from that directive, of course.) Starting at 10 a.m., you're welcome to come try some of the best frozen treats from around the city. Contests, games and live music supplement what is already the sweetest deal in town.

Then at night, we recommend the Miro Quartet over at the Long Center. The four-piece orchestrated sensations are joined this special evening by Peruvian guitarist Jorge Caballero. Honestly, if you've never heard either of these groups, you're in for a treat. But then putting them together, like the Austin Classical Guitar Society has done, it's honestly the closest you'll get to aural heaven on this earth this month. They're that good.

Plus, you'll only be missing more Olympic swimming relays, beach volleyball and track and field. You can always DVR that.

Then on Sunday, we suggest bypassing your typical brunch plans to attend the Scrumptious Chef Pop Up event at 3 Little Pigs and East End Wine. Chef and soul food scholar Adrian Miller has assembled a soul food menu that includes chicken, wilted grens, black eyed peas, corn bread and banana pudding. Local chefs have made the menu locally sourced and dietery friendly, so this is an experience you won't find anywhere else in town. Lunch starts at noon.

And starting at 4 p.m., the party moves over to the ND for a special viewing party put by the Austin Planetarium in honor of the Mars rover, Curiosity, landing on the Red Planet. Live music, astronaut ice cream and an indoor, inflatable planetarium will fill the hours before the televised screening of the actual Martian landing by the lil' rover that could. The whole ordeal will be screened up on the giant blank wall of the ND, so you'll be able to sit back and appreciate just how tiny and insignificant you are in this giant, impossible universe.

Or you could stay at home and watch the women's gymnastics individual events and springboard diving, if you're in to that sort of thing.

What I'm saying is: The Olympics are cool and all, but there's so much else going on right outside your door. Get out, put your sunscreen on, and stay hydrated. It's a brave new world. You deserve to get out there and experience it.

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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