
The States That College Graduates Are Most Likely to Leave - PNWChris
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/upshot/the-states-that-college-graduates-are-most-likely-to-leave.html
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1024core
Not sure about the methodology here. Say you're born in KY, but move to MA for
college. And from there you move back to KY after graduation. The first move
doesn't count, since you're not college-educated yet. But the second move
counts as moving from MA to KY? Is that why MA is losing college graduates, as
per this study? Because MA is chock-full of colleges, thats for sure.

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rayiner
The methodology makes the whole study suspect. New York, Massachusetts,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania have lots of universities that attract out of state
students. They get dinged for out of state students who go to college there
and leave the state for work, but get no credit for out of state students who
come for college and stay.

It's possible that the overall effect of out of state students is small but we
have no way of verifying that with the data presented.

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ubernostrum
I'm curious as to why you think it's such a major issue. The question asked is
not "which states are the best at attracting people to their universities",
the question asked is "which states are worst at keeping a student as a
longer-term resident once the student has completed university in that state".
And to answer that question you must report the results the way they have been
reported here.

The issue really seems to be that you want a different question asked. In
which case feel free to do the research to answer your question!

~~~
rayiner
The content of the article makes it seem like the question being answered is
"what states are the best at attracting college graduates?" The actual
answered question, which you state above, is an artifact of the limitations of
their data.

Say that NY and NJ are equally attractive destinations for college graduates.
But say NJ has no colleges, and everyone goes to school in NY. Under the
methodology of the article, NY will show a huge out-migration and NJ will show
a huge in-migration, even though they are identical in terms of keeping long-
time residents who graduate college.

I think that phenomenon explains exactly what you're seeing with pairs of
neighboring states. Is anyone going to seriously argue that NJ or CT are more
attractive destinations for college graduates than NY or MA?

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vmarsy
"if states are losing more college graduates than they are holding or bringing
in, they’re effectively subsidizing other states’ skilled labor forces."

Defining those subsidies could be helpful, if this refers to the in-state
tuition rates, then it would be interesting to see what proportion of students
are in-state. Out of all the in-state students, how many actually move out of
the state afterwards? I'm pretty confident that in-state students are more
likely to stay in the state than other students. On the other hand, it would
be very unlikely for let's say a student who grew up in Georgia and studied at
University of Michigan to stay in Michigan after graduation.

This is also unfair in the methodology: "Those who grew up in one state, went
to college in another, and then moved again are counted as migrating from the
state where they attended college." They were out-of-state students, so didn't
get subsidized.

If there's other subsidies (than the in-state deductions) which apply to the
entire student body, then the argument below is as valid:

"if the _US universities_ are losing more college graduates than they are
holding or bringing in, they’re effectively subsidizing other _countries_ ’
skilled labor forces."

However, in that case there IS some "quick, easy solution."

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jacalata
I assume the quick easy solution to educating foreigners and then seeing them
move home would be to award an unencumbered work visa on graduation?

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pandler
Anecdata: That would have solved their problem entirely for some of my
friends. I can easily think of a good handful of good engineers I know from
college that were disappointed to have to return to their home country when
they could not find work sponsors. That's not to say that there aren't also
the ones who's plan from the beginning was to return home, but for others the
US had become their home.

The common story that I heart was that employers were balking at the amount of
risk and paperwork required to hire foreign employees.

~~~
pjc50
The UK is going rather in the other direction with this: trying as hard as
possible to ensure that foreign graduates leave the country when they
graduate. :(

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hamandcheese
> A study comparing thousands of American and British census records between
> 1850 and 1880 showed that nearly two-thirds of American men moved across
> county lines, while only a quarter of British men did.

Doesn't really seem like a meaningful comparison. The US is comparatively
massive, with individual geographic and economic regions easily being larger
than the whole of Britain.

Not to mention parts of the US were literally still being settled during that
time. The frontier didn't close until 1890.

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astrodust
In a sense US is still being settled. Populations are shifting and adjusting.

The United Kingdom has had two hundred years to adapt to the effects of
industrialization. The United States got in on that much later, with the
majority of it happening post-WWI, and at that point the modern layout of the
country had only barely been realized. As you point out the frontier was still
very much a thing in the years immediately prior to that.

There's still a lot of shifting within the US that you simply don't see in
other countries. People are highly mobile, and cities like Austin and Atlanta
have changed dramatically in character because of large-scale migration.

The only country actively changing more than the US is probably China.

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pjc50
The UK has had only about 30 years to adapt to _de_ -industrialisation, or at
least the end of mass industrial employment. There are definitely places
hollowed out by it.

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cableshaft
The US has those same places that have been hollowed out by de-
industrialization. Take Detroit, for example. But there are plenty of other
examples.

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portman
Can anyone from New England comment on why Vermont and New Hampshire are so
different? Demographics and weather are similar, so surprised to see that
Vermont is highly negative and New Hampshire highly positive.

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ghaff
I assume it's related to the fact that New Hampshire has more industry than
Vermont (concentrated near the Mass border).

But, honestly, as I said in another comment, I'm not sure how much these
numbers mean. With respect to to the MA negative numbers, if you've been
anywhere near the Boston/Cambridge area recently the idea that there's this
mass net exodus of people is pretty silly. Certainly if you've looked at
Boston Metro real estate prices or the construction going on in the Seaport or
around Kendall Square.

EDIT: It may also be related to MA people living in NH for tax reasons.

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wyldfire
> mass net exodus of people is pretty silly

Well not necessarily "mass" (pun intended?) but -2% from 2000 to 2015. Note
that everyone who moved from other cities in Massachusetts to Boston (and
Boston burbs) are considered neutral by this metric. And there's always bound
to be graduates of those Boston universities headed for the other coast. Also
note that things are very different in Boston and elsewhere in 2016 from how
they were in 2000.

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neom
Highly recommend Ed Glaeser's book if you'd like to further understand the
socioeconomics and urbanisation aspects of this trend:
[https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-
Healt...](https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-
Healthier/dp/0143120549)

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thekevan
I'd love to see the statistics for the state of NY outside of NYC.

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shmerl
I wonder why NY in general has a negative trend.

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niftich
One theory is that New York's schools are more attractive to people looking to
start college than the state's job market, conditions and amenities, and cost-
of-living to retain those people after they graduate.

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wbl
You can also work in New York City and live in two neighboring states, which
changes the stats somewhat.

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hellofunk
In my anecdotal, non-scientific experience, a lot of students who go to a
university out of state may indeed leave that state upon graduation, but not
often to return to their home state, often other states instead. So I don't
see a big disadvantage to the methodology.

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misja111
Does anybody have an idea why so many graduates are moving to Colorado?

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int_19h
Because it has been doing pretty well lately, economically speaking. People go
where jobs are, and Denver is one of those places these days.

As to why that is... this is still a matter of debate, but here's one take.
[http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/why-
denver...](http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/why-denver-
nashville-and-boston-are-booming/)

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kazinator
The States that college grads are most likely to leave?

Why, after recent political events, them United ones of A.

