Census Data Show College Grads Leaving Connecticut
By Kevin Joy
WASHINGTON – They’re young, single, well-educated-and leaving Connecticut in droves.
More unmarried 25- to 39-year-old college graduates left the state than moved in between 1995 and 2000, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released this week.
Young adults used to leave the Northeast for such established Sunbelt cities as Phoenix and Atlanta. Now, they’re swarming to Naples, Fla., Las Vegas and Charlotte, N.C., the census reported. The continuing “brain drain” has Connecticut employers and economic officials worried about losing intellectual talent to areas with warmer climates, an abundance of jobs and lower costs of living.
Single college graduates in their 20s and 30s are more mobile than every other age or social group, the Census Bureau reported. Their departure from New England is second only to their migration from the Midwest.
“Young people want to move to places that are hip, but also have jobs,” said Marc Perry, a Census Bureau demographer. “Places with faster population growth have more job growth.”
Of the 3.4 million people living in Connecticut in 2000, 84,247 were classified as young, single college graduates. But Connecticut lost 6,315 more young, single, college graduates than it attracted during the second half of the 1990s, the bureau reported. Put another way, their rate of departure during that period was nearly three and a half times the overall out-migration rate of all other Connecticut residents 5 and older.
“It is certainly a concern, especially when the economy is struggling,” said John Tirinzonie, an economist with the Connecticut Department of Labor. “You have more people leaving and more people retiring.”
He added that nearly half of the state’s high school seniors last year chose to attend out-of-state colleges this fall, making it less likely they would return home when they graduate.
But Connecticut students and recent graduates aren’t immune to wanderlust either.
A semester in Washington during his junior year inspired Shaun Ferrari, 25, to pursue work in the nation’s capital following his graduation from Connecticut College in 2000. He is currently a financial services analyst with the Federal Reserve.
Ferrari, who grew up in Windsor Locks, said he eventually plans to settle in Connecticut.
“I’d rather raise a family there,” he said. “The feeling I get in the Northeast-I just can’t describe it. I like to see the dramatic change of all four seasons.”
On the other hand, Jonathan Kaplan, 34, headed to Texas in the early 1990s after receiving degrees from the University of Connecticut and Springfield College in Massachusetts. He said he was attracted by the low cost of living and job opportunities in the South. He moved to Boston a few years later, but his company ultimately transferred him to Phoenix, his current home.
“Everything is brand new and spotless,” Kaplan, a Stamford native, said of Phoenix, where he works for an investment management firm. “You can get a four-bedroom house for $150,000 here. And it’s definitely more relaxed than Connecticut.”
Unlike Ferrari, Kaplan doesn’t plan to return home.
Sunbelt cities continue to compete for the Northeast’s young and educated. Beginning in 1999, the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce has run a series of television ads in Boston, Dallas and Chicago, tempting young viewers with technology jobs. The chamber has run a similar campaign on the pages of Wired and Rolling Stone magazines.
Connecticut labor officials said they’re working to combat the exodus. Last year, the state targeted young adults with an advertising promotion-part of the “You Belong in Connecticut” campaign-that described the state as a “hot spot” for technology and science jobs. In January, it will sponsor a college career expo in Hartford. ”
Obviously everyone else is in competition for skilled labor, and, of course, we would like them to stay here,” said Pat O’Neil, a representative of the Connecticut Office for Workforce Competitiveness. “But Connecticut schools produce a highly skilled, well-educated labor force and, in turn, they could seek opportunities elsewhere.”
Still, O’Neil remains optimistic, saying that as the economy continues to recover and college enrollment increases, more recent graduates might decide to stay in Connecticut.
“As the baby boom generation retires, we need to fill those jobs,” O’Neil said. “We believe Connecticut can remain competitive-the quality of life here is second to none.”
