Last week I attended a panel discussion about the potentially expanded impact Flint, Michigan’s colleges could have on the city’s efforts to revive its economic fortunes. The colleges — The University of Michigan-Flint, Mott Community College, Kettering University, and Baker College — provide critical employment opportunities for the region and currently serve more than 28,000 students.

Each institution serves as a type of economic anchor, and during the panel the college’s leaders shared their ideas for how they can work together and with community leaders to hasten Flint’s resurgence, particularly as it relates to attracting new and emerging businesses to the city. To that point, Kettering University President Robert McMahan noted that Flint’s educational institutions have a diversity of purposes perhaps unmatched by any similar-sized city in the country.

From Kettering’s status as a top engineering school to UM-Flint’s role as public university to Baker’s open admissions policy to Mott’s role as a traditional community college, the four offer a broad range of experiences to students coming from a wide variety of economic and social backgrounds. Because employers need workforces that represent different levels of skills, Flint should be on the radar of companies looking to set up shop or to expand.

Obviously companies are looking at other factors for which Flint is less competitive, such as public school systems and residential real estate values. But hard work and planning is being done in those arenas and slowly but surely Flint is piecing together an emergence that’s built on the current and collective strengths of the community.

Which begs the question: When this is the impression of Flint put forth in the media how does the updated narrative of the city get communicated? Flint has strong educational and health care institutions, an emerging downtown with new restaurants and entertainment, students buying up and rehabbing old houses adjacent to the UM-Flint campus, and a vibrancy that hasn’t been felt in the community in a long time.

Yes, Flint has struggles that will continue, but recent trends show university graduates are relocating to cities that haven’t traditionally been on the list of “it” places to take jobs, such as Cleveland and Buffalo. So who knows? With some more hard work, planning, and the right investments, Flint could be known as a place to live rather than a place to leave.