Sunday, February 27, 2000
Heartland battles 'brain drain'
BY JOHN SEEWER
The Associated Press
TOLEDO — With unemployment unusually low, states and cities throughout America's heartland are under pressure to keep their best and brightest from leaving for better jobs and beachfront living.
Government leaders are offering scholarships to keep students at home after graduation and tax breaks for high-tech workers who stay in their states. Cities such as Toledo have organized groups to stop the well-educated from fleeing and to persuade their smartest sons and daughters to come home.
“It's a huge task,” said Tracy Sallah, head of a volunteer group fighting what some call brain drain. “It's not something that's going to be solved in a month or a year.”
Preserving the pool of local talent has long been a worry in developing nations, which lose many of their smartest people to countries with better universities and better-paying jobs.
In the United States, industrial development and the growth of urban centers began pulling young people away from small towns early in the century.
The advent of the interstate highway system and air travel made it easier for young people to study and work farther from home. Now the Internet is a shortcut to jobs in more exciting locales, especially for those with technology skills that are in high demand.
Areas that have been reliant on agriculture and industrial jobs are more vulnerable to brain drain, said Mark Drabenstott, director of the Center for the Study of Rural America in Kansas City, Mo.
“When your best and brightest are your exports, it really poses a problem for rural communities in leadership and entrepreneurship,” Mr. Drabenstott said.
It will take more than a tax break or an incentive to get businesses and their employees to locate to some of the affected heartland cities, he said.
“Rural communities that don't have a mountain or lake in their backyard probably need to appeal to an issue of family values and family amenities,” Mr. Drabenstott said.
In some states, the government is getting involved.
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack is pushing a plan giving tax breaks to engineers, teachers and others who stay in the state.
Pennsylvania is beginning a scholarship program that stipulates recipients must work one full year in Pennsylvania after graduation for each year that they received the scholarship money.
Some are concerned these programs give handouts to high-earners.
“It tends to put money in the pockets of those who need it least,” said Chuck Hassebrook, program director for the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Neb.
Instead, states should spend more time and money educating and helping students from families that can't afford a college education.
“The greatest asset a state can have is an educated work force,” said Mr. Hassebrook, a regent at the University of Nebraska.
In Toledo, city leaders began exploring the brain drain issue last summer after the city's daily newspaper reported that the more education Toledoans have, the more likely they are to leave. Census figures show that for every two young people who move to Toledo, three leave.
Mayor Carty Finkbeiner appointed Ms. Sallah to lead Foundations for the Future — a group focused on creating more job and social opportunities for young people.
“I want people to take us seriously,” Ms. Sallah said. “This is important to us, it's important to our community.
“Our city needs to stand up for itself.”
A top priority is reshaping the city's image of a tired industrial town.
“We need to feel good about ourselves,” she said.
Supporters say the city of 300,000 needs more downtown apartments and nightclubs. Others say better-paying jobs are the answer to keeping folks.
It won't be easy to sway everyone to stay.
Even the committee fighting brain drain has lost two of its members to better jobs in bigger cities.
Ms. Sallah, though, said she is not discouraged and understands that young people often have a need to leave their hometown.
“I would encourage my own children to go out and explore the world,” she said. “I think it's perfectly normal and it creates a more well-rounded individual.”
STATES TARGET EDUCATED
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INDIANA — Business and education leaders have commissioned a project to find out why natives leave Indiana after graduating from college.
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IOWA — Gov. Tom Vilsack wants to use tax breaks to keep well-educated Iowans working in the state and lure natives back. Also sends letters to alumni asking them to consider returning to Iowa.
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KENTUCKY — The Young Professionals Task Force is working to attract more young professionals to Louisville and keep those already in town.
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OHIO — State Sen. Grace Drake is proposing loans for college students who enter a university program of statewide economic importance. The loans would be forgiven if the students worked in Ohio for at least five years after graduation.
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WISCONSIN — Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen introduced legislation providing a tax credit for employers who pay for their workers' education.
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