Here's a demographic snapshot of the northern most county in the Dallas metroplex:

• County Seat: McKinney
• Area: 848 sq. miles of land; 38 sq. miles of water
• Towns and Cities: 27
• Estimated Population (2008): 749,500
• 50/50 population split of males to females
• Median age: 33.7 years
• Under 18 years old: 1 in 4 residents
• Over 65 years of age: 6%
• Number of households: 246,000
• Average number per household: 2.8
• Number of families: 72% of households
• Traditional married couple families: 80% of family households
• Number of adults living alone: 57,000
• Average Wage per Job (2004): $42,736
• Median Household Income: (2004) $75,709
• New residents moving in each day: 94
• Density: 580 people/sq. mile
• Paved County Roads: 726 miles
• Average Home Value: $230,000
• County Tax Rate (2009): $0.2425 per $100 assessed value
• Independent School Districts: 21
• Special Districts: 2
• Hospital Districts: None
• County-level Elected Officials: 34

The numbers make Collin County:

• The fastest growing county in Texas, and one of the fastest growing in the U.S.
• The 6th most populous county in Texas
• Among counties with more than a half-million people, the highest sustained growth rate since the last Census in 2000, at 52.1 percent
• The wealthiest county in Texas

Collin County has experienced major changes since 2000:

• The population has grown by more than 52 percent
• The number of households has grown by 35 percent
• Asian and African American populations have more than doubled
• The Latino population has increased by 85 percent
• The Caucasian population has grown by 35 percent
• Householders aged 65 and older have increased by almost 65 percent

Industry & Occupation

From 2000 to 2006 there were 104,000 more jobs in the civilian labor force here in Collin County, far outpacing the county's 42-percent population growth spurt for the same period. The latest estimated unemployment rate for the county (2007) came in at 3.9 percent, compared to the state's rate of 4.3 percent and a national rate of 4.6 percent, according to the BLS. More current rates are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Texas Workforce Commission. There's also more from the latest American Community Survey (ACS):

• For the employed population in 2006 (almost 531,000, a.k.a. the 16 and older crowd):
• Education services, healthcare and social assistance industries employed slightly more than 17 percent
• Professional, scientific, and administrative and waste management services industries made up 14 percent
• The most common three occupational groupings were: management, professional and related occupations (48 percent), sales and office workers (28 percent), and service jobs (12 percent)
• From 2000-2006, the only occupations that saw a loss of workers were farming, fishing and forestry; all other occupations grew by double-digit percent increases, especially service jobs, which grew by almost 90 percent.

Workforce Education

The education level of the county's workforce just about doubles state and U.S. averages for degreed workers:

• 47 percent of those 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher
• More than 9 out of 10 workers 25 and older have at least a high school diploma
• The county's advanced degreed workers increased by almost 23,000, while about 43,000 more workers arrived with bachelor's degrees, from 2000 to 2006
• The smallest increases - less than 5 percent each - are for those with no high school diploma
• Less than one in 10 workers here dropped out of school

Getting to Work

The ACS determined that the average commute to work for a Collin County resident is 28.1 minutes. For those less fortunate with their daily commutes, especially those heading to downtown Dallas at the crack of dawn, voters here passed a $235.6 million bond package in November 2007 to widen and improve our roadways. Work on the Highway 121 toll road will not only bring a faster east-west trip across the middle of the county but also pull in added revenues to work on other large roadway expansions in our area. For plans far in the future, take a look at Collin County's Outer Loop Project.

Meanwhile, the ACS figures go on to point out that:

• More than eight out of 10 of county residents drive alone to work, which is higher than state or U.S. percentages
• Those using public transportation more than doubled from 2000 to 2007
• Collin County residents work at home at a much higher rate than the state average
• County residents' mean morning work commute travel time shrunk by a fraction from 2000-2006, but remained a few minutes longer than national or state averages

Paychecks & Such

• County residents' per capita income is 28 percent (or $10,000 per year) higher than the national rate
• Our median family income here is almost 34 percent (or $30,000 per year) higher than the U.S. median
• The 2006 county median household income was estimated at $74,051
• Less than two percent of county families were estimated to have received public cash assistance in 2006
• Only four percent of county families were estimated to fall at or below the 2006 federal poverty line ($9,800 annual income for one individual and $20,000 for a family of four)

Collin County had a 93-percent occupancy rate for the 263,000-plus housing units here:

• Two-thirds of occupied housing are owner-occupied, with 27 percent rented out (73 percent of the rentals are single-unit structures, the rest being multi-unit buildings)
• Traditional married-couple families make up 60 percent of the more than quarter-million households
• The median monthly housing cost for an owner with a mortgage is $1,831, $722 for owners without a mortgage, and $906 a month for the median rent
• Two thirds of these homes - more than 166,000 - were built in 1990 or later

For a comparison between these and local figures on home values, please see the Certified Totals from the Collin Central Appraisal District.

Schools

Total school enrollment was estimated at 202,000 in 2006, which breaks down to 27,000 in nursery school and kindergarten, 126,000 in grades 1 through 12, and, 49,000 in college or graduate school. For individual school district enrollments please check our ISD links.

For an outside look at Collin County schools, check out Forbes Magazine's Best and Worst School Districts for the Buck, where Collin County ranked second in the nation. Additionally:

• The county's biggest educational growth spurt from 2000-2006 came from college (undergraduate and graduate) enrollments, up almost 47 percent
• High-school students grew at the second-fastest rate in this timeframe, at 36.5 percent
• Elementary school students make up the largest single group, at 42 percent of all enrolled students, but their growth rate dropped three percent in the same timeframe

Where You From, Son?

Just in case you were wondering, Native Texans have lost the upper hand, population-wise, in Collin County. We're not sure exactly when that happened (and we're still checking on that) but the survey put people born in the Lone Star State at 45 percent in 2006. But that's not all that's happening to the cultural make-up of the county:

• One in five county residents will be foreign born in the near future, from slightly more than 17 percent in 2006
• About four out of 10 of those foreign born are naturalized U.S. citizens
• A language other than English is spoken in almost one in four homes here, representing almost 150,000 county residents

More and more businesses are setting up shop here, for a lot of great reasons. Take a look at some of these companies, and how many people they’re currently employing in Collin County. And maybe soon we can add you to the list.