The latest Census data for New Hampshire are out, and MUCH OF THE news is good. New Hampshire now ranks eighth IN THE NATION FOR THE BEST EDUCATED POPULATION. Thirty percent of people in the state have a bachelor?s degree or more. BUT AS NHPR CORRESPONDENT ALISON WELLNER REPORTS, THE TREND IS NOT DUE TO PARTICULARLY GOOD SCHOOLS?BUT THE SUCCESSFUL IMPORT OF BRAINS.
Drawn by the booming high tech economy, the 1990s saw a flood of new residents enter the Granite State. These newest owners of the ?Live Free or Die? license plate are two and half times more likely to have a college degree than natives.
Boosting the education rates of the state even more, as educated professionals moved in, other less-educated residents packed their bags and moved out.
Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire survey center SAYS Over the past DECADE THE STATE LOST ABOUT 300 THOUSAND PEOPLE?.BUT AT THE SAME TIME, SOME 400 THOUSAND MOVED IN.
{Andy Smithpopchurn2} ?There really was a churning? of about a third to a quarter of the population in the state. That?s really a dramatic change, we?ve had so many people move out and other people move back in.?
AND SMITH ADDS The churn has been positive for New Hampshire.
{Andy Smithtradingup} ?We are trading up. The people that have moved into the state have been younger, they have had higher levels of education, and higher levels of income than the people who have left.?
The question is, as a booming economy fades into a recession, can the trend continue? Will New Hampshire be able to maintain its well-educated population?
The recession makes it far less likely. Thanks to the economic slow-down, the high tech machine that drew many well-educated workers into the state has lost a lot of its pull.
Brett St. Clair, vice president at the Business Industry Association:
{Brett St.ClairTechforce} ?The technology boom has ended, software and especially internet companies have downsized, there are a lot more people available with those computer skills and so forth that were really in demand over the Y2k period and the boom of the internet economy?.And so right now there a lot more people with college educations who are finding themselves out of work than there were a year ago.?
This makes it easier and cheaper for local companies to find NEW employees in their own backyard. SO businesses ARE LESS LIKELY TO import college-educated workers in the numbers that they have over the past decade.
UNH PROFESSOR Ross Gittell POINTS OUT THAT The state also can?t count on high school or college students to IMPROVE Its college education statistics, That?s because he says that New Hampshire suffers from Brain Drain.
{Ross GitellBrainDrain2} ?We rank fourth lowest in terms of percentage of our high school graduates that go on to post-secondary, who stay in state.?
In fact, Gittell?s research shows that even when high school grads stay in New Hampshire for college, half leave soon after graduation. Jessica McDermott, 23, was too nervous to stray far from her home town of Raymond when she was applying to college, and so she decided to attend UNH. An ambitious student, she added an extra semester to her undergraduate studies to pursue two majors and a minor:
{Jessica McDermottBrainy}
?I have a dual major in business administration and international affairs with a minor in Spanish.?
But McDermott is going to take all of that New Hampshire education with her to Atlanta when she graduates this month.
{JessicaMcDermottOpportunities}
?I figure in Georgia, there?s a really really large Hispanic population there, and my Spanish would be much more useful there. I feel like I?d have more of an international experience there. There are a lot of large companies there that work with South America, which is what I, I spent the semester abroad in Costa Rica and I really really liked the area and I?d really like to have some kind of connection with that area if I could.?. I don?t really know what I?m looking for.?
It?s not easy to convince a grad with wanderlust to stay in HER own backyard, but the state can?t afford to continue to lose students like McDermott. Other high tech rival states such as California and North Carolina, are experimenting with various programs TO PROVIDE GRADS WITH INCENTIVES to stay in state. SOME STATES ARE Repaying college loans. OTHERS OFFER GRADS LOWER RATES ON home mortgages. KELLY CLARKE IS executive director of the New Hampshire Forum of Higher Education
{KellyClarkeRelationships}
I think that we definitely think we need to start looking at some of these creative and more progressive programs that do create an incentive to maintain and build a relationship with our college graduates and our businesses in the state.
But so far in New Hampshire, she says, the focus has been on the boosting the number of high school seniors GOING TO college by beefing up scholarship programs and promoting the financial benefits of a higher education. But for New Hampshire to maintain its footing among other well-educated states, high school students are going to have to do more than commit to a college education. They?re also going to have to decide that there?s no place like home.
