Brain Drain Update: States Look to Avoid Losing Their Minds

A technically-skilled workforce is one of the elements required for a tech-based economy, so the issue of stopping the brain drain is of critical importance to some regions and states. The choice for some states, it has been observed, is to turn into retirement homes or to retain their college graduates; in short, to avoid losing their minds. Maine, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are just a few of the states that have been looking at the issue.

A recent study of Maine graduates in 1998, Where They Go and Why: Finding Maine’s Future Workforce, reveals that while half of the Maine’s high school graduates leave the state to attend college, many transfer back to Maine colleges and universities to complete their degrees. Additionally, more than half of Maine’s best and brightest college graduates in 1998 chose to stay in-state or return to Maine to earn their degree. The study defines the "best and brightest" as those students who earned A’s or B’s in high school and whose mothers have earned at least a bachelor’s degree.

Three out of every four of Maine’s best and brightest students, however, ultimately choose to live and work outside of Maine, according to the data. Most of these students decided to "live and work outside Maine because of greater perceived career opportunities outside Maine, which were more important to them than social and family considerations." Where Maine’s residents who have earned a college degree choose to live and work depends largely on whether family and social ties or career opportunities are more important to them, the study suggests.

Ohio finds similar statistics among its college graduates. A study of the state’s colleges and universities, prepared by the Ohio Board of Regents, shows 75 percent of graduates "were known to be either employed in Ohio or continuing their schooling in Ohio the year after graduation." However, only 61 percent of those earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering fields were working in-state following graduation, and even fewer chemistry and physics majors, 46 percent, did the same.

The Ohio Board of Regents performance report only tracks employment outcomes within the first six months of graduation for recent spring graduates, but the findings help affirm what a Cleveland Plain Dealer study revealed over the course of 11 years — that graduates earning the highest degrees are least likely to remain in Ohio. The Plain Dealer reports that master’s degree graduates are almost 30 percent more like likely to leave than bachelor’s degree graduates, and those earning doctoral degrees "are more than twice as likely to go." The newspaper’s analysis considered data for 490,000 alumni of 23 public and private institutions.

Countering the Trend

In the case of Maine and Ohio, the studies point to various factors affecting graduates’ decisions to leave the state where they received their degree following graduation. Some choose to return home to live with parents, in part, to get a head start paying off loans. Others go where the best career opportunity leads them. Still, others leave for their own reasons, be it tax advantages of living elsewhere or a more appealing quality of life.

In Pennsylvania, a state considered the second-oldest due to the percentage of its population that is elderly, the outlook is little different. One study reports the state lost 20,000 college graduates of 20- and 29-years-old from 1995-1997. Using U.S. Census data, the study shows the number of Pennsylvanians 20- to 34-year-olds fell 17 percent between 1990 and 2000.

The Keystone State has at least one program in place that is working to reverse the trend, however. Stay Invent the Future, a 2-year-old initiative to retain the state’s young people, aims to connect students with Pennsylvania employers through an internship plan and online activities at http://www.StayInventPA.com. The program also has an interagency team to examine how existing agency programs and activities can support the retention of young Pennsylvanians.

One of the initiative’s key components is the Stay Invent the Future Challenge Grant Program, which awards seed money for local and regional efforts to provide strategies and projects to attract and retain young people. A primary consideration to funding is how the project supports and complements the region’s strategy. In the first round of grants, 92 projects totaling more than $6.1 million were awarded across 10 regions.

Youthful Planning

Where They Go and Why – intended to provide guidance in the development of Maine’s future workforce and create strategies to improve marketing of Maine’s colleges and universities – does offer some policy recommendations that may provide direction for states looking to reverse any "brain drain" within their borders. The study suggests the following:

* Provide more targeted marketing strategies for institutions of higher education;

* Increase the quality of the programs available at these institutions, including additional funding for Centers of Excellence programs

* Raise the level of grant financial assistance;

* Develop more focused student loan forgiveness programs;

* Create a "true" and affordable community college system; and,

* Foster greater employment opportunities.

Conducted jointly by the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) and the University of Southern Maine’s Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation (CEPARE), Where They Go and Why is available at: http://usm.maine.edu/cepare//

The Ohio Board of Regents performance report is available at: http://www.regents.state.oh.us/perfrpt/

The Pennsylvania study, Pennsylvania’s Brain Drain Migration in the Mid-1990s is available for purchase from Penn State University at: http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/pasdc/Products_and_Services/Publications/Issue_Papers/

Another valuable resource for strategies to retain young talent is Plugging the Brain Drain, a report released by Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Economic Development in November 2001. The report is available at: http://www.smartpolicy.org/publications.shtml

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Copyright State Science & Technology Institute 2003. Information in this issue of SSTI Weekly Digest was prepared under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. Redistribution to all others interested in tech-based economic development is strongly encouraged — please cite the State Science & Technology Institute whenever portions are reproduced or redirected. Any opinions expressed in the Digest do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Commerce.