Tech Level Not Rising: Bug or Not?

[Aelurus]

I don't know if this is a bug or I did something wrong with my city.

I am playing in a region with two other players connected via trains. I decided to focus on industrial while the others focus on residential and tourism.

I have a city with two grade schools, two high schools, and a community college. From what I understand, the grade schools and highschools raise tech to level 1, college to 2, and university to 3. I decided to remain in tech level 2 since we plan on creating a university town on another region on a later date. My tech went up to 2 a few hours after I built my first college but then decided later to move the college since it was creating heavy traffic in it's current position.

After deleting the current college and placing a new college somewhere less traffic-inducing, my tech slowly went down. My industries began complaining and closing down then my nuclear plant became unsafe since it no longer had trained workers. And my tech never went up.

I tried deleting the college and returning it to it's original spot, but the tech no longer went up. One of my friends on another city in the region reported that his tech was also stuck to 1. Did we do something wrong? Is my tech-savvy workforce leaving to work on another city? If so is there a way to know within the game? Or is this simply a bug?

[Mc6arnagle]

One problem I found is no one was going to college.  The grade school and high school would be packed, but the college would have very few students.  It's a really strange dynamic and doesn't make a lot of sense, but once I turned off my high school the attendance at the college went up.  It is either that or your population is too high (therefore not enough are going to school) and the community college needs more additions to it.

It not just the building that ups the tech, it's the population actually going to the high tech institutions.

Somebody else may be more versed in what it takes to up your college population.  IIRC, low income is happy about grade school, mid income happy about high school, and high income happy about those 2 and college.  Yet I am not sure if that means low income only sends kids to grade school, mid income only high school, and high income sends students to all 3.

[linusmcfluffy]

The sims dont care what school they go to. They just go the the one they happen to go to. In other words, you should only have open the best school you have. And either turn the others off until the best school is full. Or destroy the other schools to get more space. 

Students are students, your city have a number of students. It does not sperate by income class. First come first served

[PtitRun]

If you don't have any residential in your city, it won't work. Sims commute without their brains.

Believe me, I tried to figure out how education and high tech work through the region since launch day. The only success I had it's to put everything in the same city which makes no sense at all

EDIT : see my other topic here : http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Bug-report-Industrial-tech-level-in-the-region-and/m-p...

[Raadelma78]

Try placing the college near to your industrial area, see if that helps, i have found always placing it near, increases. As the info bubble says "increase tech level of nearby buildings"

[Aelurus]

Everyone thanks for the replies.

I closed down the other schools and removed the bus stops close to the college but that did not work, my tech still does not climb past level 1.

I even built an extension for my college for the extra students but the tech still doesnt climb. I'm afraid that my sims may have poop for brains. I may just give up on this city - bug or not. I agree with the other posters that this game has some weird game mechanics.

[brandonee916]

It sounds strange, but I've found placing the College or University between my residential and industrial zones on the commute path does the trick for me.

[cah67mix]

That has not been borne out by my experience. If you watch the game over time, you can see surges and declines in enrollment travel through your education system. If you have low enrollment in your grade school a few game cycles later you'll have low enrollment in your high school... and then in your college...

It seems to me that populations in the game follow the typical development trends in developing, developed, and post-industrial/aging populations. Check out population pyramids (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_pyramid). As my cities grow and develop and my Sims age, the size of student enrollment declines. I find that as long as I have bus stops in all my residential zones and check the enrollment map periodically (plopping a new stop wherever I see unenrolled students), the problem is self-correcting.

But I have the typical issue of losing low income workers as my city property values appreciate. Low income workers get squeezed out and I have to import them from a new adjoining/connected city.

[cah67mix]

You need to locate the college and university in physical proximity to your industrial zones or the tech levels won't grow.

I also saw in another post that high tech specialization (processors and TVs/computers) will suck up all the educated workers, preventing your remaining industry from raising its tech level. This has been a slight problem for me because I can't keep low income workers in my city as property values appreciate.

[cah67mix]

A developed mass transit system with shuttle buses and light rail helps too, as Sims won't walk further than a few blocks. I find it helpful to mix my residential and commercial so that they can easily find places to shop and work.