Alaska Is Losing Gen Z Faster Than Any Other State

Alaska is Losing Gen Z faster than any other state in America, and the gap is not close. According to a new LendingTree analysis of 2024 Census data, published in October 2026, the state recorded a net loss of 6,069 adults aged 18 to 27 — about 6.3% of its young adult population — after an estimated 13,684 left while 7,615 moved in.

Zoom out and the picture is a generation on the move. LendingTree estimates that 10.7 million of America’s 44.6 million Gen Z adults crossed a state line in 2024, a mobility rate of 23.9% — higher than any other generation. Millennials moved at 14%, Gen X at 7.2%, and baby boomers at just 5.2%. Nearly two in five of the young movers were enrolled in college at the time, suggesting campuses explain a meaningful share of the churn.

Where young adults are going instead

The winners’ list reads like a tour of affordable, growing regions. South Carolina posted the largest net gain of Gen Z adults, adding an estimated 22,843, followed by Missouri at just over 14,000. Washington, New York and Texas each added more than 10,000, and the District of Columbia saw the biggest proportional bump — interstate migration equal to about one in eight of its Gen Z population. The single busiest corridor ran between the two most populous states: more than 19,000 young Californians moved to Texas, while roughly 13,400 went the other direction.

On the losing end, California shed the most in raw numbers — a net loss of 58,109, after nearly 187,000 departures against fewer than 129,000 arrivals. New Jersey lost more than 37,000 and Illinois topped 20,000. But proportionally, no state comes near Alaska: its share-based loss was nearly six times California’s, which sat at 1.1%. For young Alaskans who did leave, Utah was the top destination at an estimated 1,975 arrivals, while Washington supplied the most newcomers to Alaska at 937, as the Alaska-focused writeup of the data details. The takeaway: when it comes to Losing Gen Z, small states feel every departure more.

“In the part of their life that Gen Z finds themselves, they are just a little more able to move,” Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst, told Realtor.com. “When you’re young and you’re just getting started, you don’t have to worry about moving your kids to a new school or uprooting your entire family.” Schulz also told Fox Business that affordability was driving at least part of the pattern — a read the destination data supports.

That enrollment thread runs through the whole dataset. A meaningful share of this migration is students following admissions letters rather than job offers, which helps explain the winners: states pairing large, affordable university systems with growing job markets keep showing up on both the education and employment sides of the ledger. For Alaska, the challenge is structural — a small population where every graduating class that leaves for school elsewhere moves the needle.

What the great Gen Z reshuffle means for you

For young adults weighing a move, the data is both a permission slip and a warning. Affordability is pulling people toward lower-cost states — a trend visible in Gen Z’s shift toward investing over homeownership — while steep housing costs push them out of expensive metros, where living alone has become the most expensive dream. The analysis also flags the practical costs of relocating: differences in rent and transportation, insurance coverage and taxes between states, and keeping credit healthy during a move — the kind of financial juggling recent coverage of young adults’ messy money lives has explored.

There is a caveat the numbers themselves carry: migration figures alone do not establish whether people moved for college, jobs, housing, military assignments, or something else. And a map shaded by total losses makes California look like the whole story while understating the relative scale of smaller states’ departures. For the states on the losing end, the question is retention — what keeps the next generation of workers, entrepreneurs and families around. For Gen Z, the question is simpler: where does the math of rent, wages and a decent life actually work.