Which states are losing/gaining college graduates?

September 23, 2008 11:43 AM

I am looking for an article or a study, which I only dimly remember, that was a statistical/demographic account of which USA states had in-migration or out-migration of people with college degrees.

The question I am trying to answer, and the question which I dimly recall this study addressed, was: which states are losing college graduates? Which states are gaining them?

posted by Mr. Justice to Human Relations (5 answers total)

The raw data are on the census bureau's mobility/migration page. Any studies that looked at this more closely (e.g. longitudinally or in combination with other factors) would start with this anyway.
posted by dhartung at 12:11 PM on September 23, 2008

One of the Census 2000 special reports published by the US Census Bureau looked at the migration of the young, single, college-educated population by comparing the metro area of residence in 1995 (as reported on the Census 2000 long form) with the place of residence at the time of Census 2000. You can download a pdf version of the report for the Census Bureau's website. You can also download the full tables of supporting data. In this report "young" is defined as 25 to 39, "single" means people who had never married, or were either divorced or widowed at the time of the census, and "college educated" means at least a college degree. This report focuses on metro areas, but Table 3 in the report covers states.
posted by Dead Man at 12:24 PM on September 23, 2008

Seems that this might have been in Atlantic, in their usual feature that deals with statistical patterns. Something like 4-5 mos. ago.
posted by yazi at 5:30 PM on September 23, 2008

I think this phenomenon is referred to as "brain drain". Here's an article that talks about average education level discrepancies between major metro areas.
posted by cosmicbandito at 6:17 PM on September 23, 2008

Here is a direct link to the special report from the US Census Beaureau in 2000 regarding "Migration of young, single and college-educated" workers. It is cited as reference #49 in the Wikipedia entry for "Brain Drain".
posted by sophist at 6:52 PM on September 23, 2008