Although this piece went with girls rushing a sorority for its illustration, our own Leslie Cochran is featured as a sort of Austin goodwill ambassador, and this gnomic utterance of his closes the article: “The people of Austin make Austin.”

The premise is that places with large academic institutions weather bad economies better than others and that Austin tends to do best of all.

Find this article in the current issue of Forbes magazine (“Recession Rah-Rah,” bylines Jesse Bogan and Kurt Badenhausen; April 13).