Work-from-home news

Dallas suburb plugs in as No. 1 U.S. city for remote workers in 2025

Frisco is a hotspot for remote workers.

Photo by Maskot/Getty

The Dallas suburb of Frisco is a hotspot for remote workers in 2025: A new report anoints the techy city as the best city in America for remote workers.

Frisco earned a near-perfect score of 99 out of 100 in the study, conducted by digital business card company Wave Connect.

Two other Dallas suburbs also made the study’s top 10: Allen (No. 3, with a score of 78) and Plano (No. 6, with a score of 57).

Wave Connect analyzed the 40 U.S. cities with the largest remote worker populations and evaluated them on eight factors, including share of remote workers, median pay, cost of living index, yearly rent, dining costs, internet cost and speed, coworking availability, and safety index.

“The data reveals that smaller cities can actually offer better value to remote workers,” says George El-Hage, founder and CEO of Wave Connect. “For example, remote professionals in Frisco and Allen can combine six-figure salaries with housing costs under $25,000 annually, creating wealth-building opportunities that may not exist in expensive coastal markets.”

“If the shift to remote work continues,” El-Hage adds, “we might see traditional tech hubs losing residents to these more affordable destinations that offer both digital infrastructure and financial freedom.”

In the study, Frisco, Allen and Plano benefited from the lowest cost-of-living index (92.7) in the top 10. Allen boasted the lowest average yearly rent in the top 10 — $18,000.

On the internet front, Frisco had the second-highest download speed (271 megabytes per second). And in the money department, Frisco came in third place for median annual pay for remote workers ($111,000), and it tied for the lowest average yearly spending on restaurant meals ($2,300).

The top 10 cities for remote workers, according to the Wave Connect study, are:

No. 1 Frisco, Texas
No. 2 Cary, North Carolina
No. 3 Allen, Texas
No. 4 Bellevue, Washington
No. 5 Arlington, Virginia
No. 6 Plano, Texas
No. 7 Naperville, Illinois
No. 8 Highlands Ranch, Colorado
No. 9 Alexandria, Virginia
No. 10 Santa Clara, California

Frisco is on a roll when it comes to work-from-home accolades. A recent SmartAsset survey crowned Frisco as the U.S. city with the biggest share of remote workers. The study found over 40,000 Frisco residents work from home, which is more than a third of all of the city's workers aged 16 and older (117,193 total workers).

And data published recently by the U.S. Census Bureau shows remote workers in the Dallas metro area earn nearly 51 percent more than their commuting counterparts.

dfw suburbs frisco texas remote workers wave connect study work from home innovation

educational excellence

3 Dallas schools named top colleges for 2027 by The Princeton Review

University of Texas at Dallas graduation regalia

The University of Texas at Dallas/Facebook

The University of Texas at Dallas is one of the top 50 best value public colleges for 2027.

Back-to-school season is has returned in full force, and that means it's time for college rankings. Three Dallas universities — Southern Methodist University, The University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of Dallas — are being hailed top of the class for 2027.

The three Dallas-area schools earned new acclaim in The Princeton Review's new ranking of the "Best 392 Colleges" for 2027. Across town, Texas Christian University in Fort Worth also earned high praise.

The Princeton Review's 35th annual "Best Colleges" rankings are determined by a survey of 172,000 current college students that gave "candid feedback" about their schools and their experiences. The flagship guide does not rank the schools overall, but it does rank them across 50 different categories, including best-run colleges, best quality of life, happiest students, best athletic facilities, among others.

Schools don't pay to be included in the guide, but The Princeton Review clarified that schools could pay for a "featured" designation. No Dallas-Fort Worth school paid to be featured in this year's guide.

In addition to being included in the overall list, Southern Methodist University was highlighted in the regional Best Southwest list that contained 41 universities across Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

"This mid-size private university provides 'a wealth of academic resources...[and] a flood of opportunities for those who want them,' allowing SMU to lead the way for the Dallas-Fort Worth area in developing innovative industries and initiatives in semiconductors, biotechnology, clean energy, precision medicine, and AI," the university's profile says.

This is how the other Dallas schools shined in The Princeton Review's guide:

University of Dallas, Irving

Best Value Colleges
Best Southwest
The Best 392 Colleges
No. 2 – Most Religious Students
No. 5 – LGBTQ-Unfriendly (based on "how strongly students disagree that their fellow students treat all persons equally, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression")
No. 6 – Most Politically Conservative Students
No. 15 – Professors Get High Marks
No. 17 – Happiest Students
No. 24 – Pot's Not Hot (a ranking of colleges with the "least marijuana usage based on ratings from real students about the popularity of marijuana on campus.")

University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson

Best Value Colleges
Best Southwest
Green Colleges (colleges that "share superb sustainability practices, a strong foundation in sustainability education, and a healthy quality of life for students on campus.")
The Best 392 Colleges
No. 3 – Top 20 Best Public Schools for Internships
No. 3 – Top Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies in the Southwest
No. 21 – Top 50 Undergraduate Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies
No. 40 – Top 50 Best Value Public Colleges

universities dallas university of dallas university of texas at dallas southern methodist university the princeton review rankings