Losing Our Minds: Brain Drain across the United States

[Rasulis]

I do find it interesting that in the 1970s, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were all low gross brain drain and net brain gain states. California was, despite Silicon Valley, at the time considered high gross brain drain and net brain drain state. So what changed between the 1970 and 1980 that reversed the trend?

[Rasulis]

It is a kind of problem. In a way Universities serve to strip mine the country of people, process them, then ship them to about four or five cities, leaving a land barren and desecrated.

One of the core problems is you think about towns in the past where the library or school or statues commemorate some local person who did something great for that community. Now that community is all but eviscerated in the United States, the places just serve as places to harvest the particularly gifted, process them through the university system and ship them to a few major metropolitan areas.

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The real question is "How is this progress?" and "Progress towards what?"

So what's the solution? Close all universities?

I can think of quite a few small rural towns that prosper because they are located in close proximity to a university or college.

[GreenJesus]

Wait, so the study basically says that educated people leave states that are filled with uneducated people? I'm willing to bet it is primarily an issue of jobs available in those states. I think it is probably fair to blame a lot of that on poor governance and legislation. The Rust Belt needs to stop electing morons, cause those morons they elect just proceed to economically cripple their state.

Or being near ports and regional transportation hubs leads to more industry and jobs? And not "lol those people over there are just stupid"

[XangXu]

Unregulated internet and social media are to blame.

[Sunseeker]

Interesting that something so common still in different parts of the world, and in bygone days of this country is so distressing to you.

It's not them, it's you.

[Elegiac]

Because I was not talking about what the person was talking about. I was talking about the culture in general.

In context of what he was talking about; staying in town, having kids, staying within the culture, and working to keep the city functional, etc, etc.

Things we did for thousands of years that worked well enough.

Jordan Peterson must have come out with an article supporting Luddism that we aren’t aware of, I see.

What a miserable existence, being so weak willed that your opinion inverts based on the last person you read or talked to. It is fairly amusing considering your previous habit of posting nothing but transhumanist articles.

[Ghostpanther]

States can offer tax(or other) incentives to companies to move there. The minds will follow the jobs

This. A lot of industry has left the rust belt states, which in turn can also pull a lot of higher educated people with them.

[Independent voter]

We define a highly-educated “leaver” as someone in the top third of the national education distribution who resides in a state other than her birth state between the ages of 31 and 40.

So they aren't leaving the US? So what?




Here's a list of states where these brainy people are going.

Notice two of the top states are "fracking states"?



State Gap in % Highly-Educated between Leavers and Entrants

North Dakota 19.9

Delaware 17.2

South Dakota 14.6

Iowa 14.3

Mississippi 13.5

Idaho 12.0

Oklahoma 11.0




Idaho, Iowa are popular because they are full of white people.

Mississippi is a surprise. Why are smart people leaving California and heading to Mississippi?

[roboscorcher]

OT: As somebody that was born and raised in Kentucky (now have a masters degree and live in Cali), I can definitely attest to the culture of ignorance that plagues that state. Being dumb is to be cool and being smart or intelligent is to be made fun of and frowned upon by your peers. I can't count how many times I acted like I didn't know something or didn't care to learn when I was growing up just to avoid any possible teasing or bullying.

I was raised in a rural area, so I can relate to the anti-illectualism that goes on. But if your elected senator Mitch McConnell is anything to go by, Kentucky is on a while other level. That guy will stop at nothing to protect Trump and Russian interests. I feel sorry for you, man.

[Rasulis]

We define a highly-educated “leaver” as someone in the top third of the national education distribution who resides in a state other than her birth state between the ages of 31 and 40.

So they aren't leaving the US? So what?




Here's a list of states where these brainy people are going.

Notice two of the top states are "fracking states"?



State Gap in % Highly-Educated between Leavers and Entrants

North Dakota 19.9

Delaware 17.2

South Dakota 14.6

Iowa 14.3

Mississippi 13.5

Idaho 12.0

Oklahoma 11.0




Idaho, Iowa are popular because they are full of white people.

Mississippi is a surprise. Why are smart people leaving California and heading to Mississippi?

It is a table of brain drain and not brain gain. The table shows that in 2017, North Dakota lost 19.9% of its highly educated residence between the age of 31 and 40. While California gained 20.2%. If you include college educated immigrants and foreign students that graduated from US universities, California gain in 2017 was closer to 28%.

Part of the problem is that US states compete against each other economically instead of working together. During the 2008 economic crash, Rick Perry, at that time Texas governor, came to California to openly entice local businesses to move to Texas. The fact that West Virginia population is in decline is a problem for West Virginia, and West Virginia alone. The fact that the fracking states contribute greatly to the demise of the coal industry in West Virginia makes no never mind. The same goes for CA, MA and NY siphoning the brain power from states that needed them a lot more.

It is no surprise that the “winner takes all” approach to economy creates winners and losers.

[Theodarzna]

So what's the solution? Close all universities?

I can think of quite a few small rural towns that prosper because they are located in close proximity to a university or college.

No, actually my proposal would be the split up a lot of the federal government from Washington DC. Much how the CDC is HQ'd outside DC, I'd shift a lot of government offices to as many places as possible. And even split up departments to have various branches in various different areas. Since in the end one of the biggest hubs people are shipped to is DC, split up DC since we have the power to do that.

Obvious San Francisco, LA, New York ect will remain important hubs since they are massive cities on the coast with big harbors, you can't exactly replicate that in Nevada or Ohio or Indiana.

[Rasulis]

No, actually my proposal would be the split up a lot of the federal government from Washington DC. Much how the CDC is HQ'd outside DC, I'd shift a lot of government offices to as many places as possible. And even split up departments to have various branches in various different areas. Since in the end one of the biggest hubs people are shipped to is DC, split up DC since we have the power to do that.

Obvious San Francisco, LA, New York ect will remain important hubs since they are massive cities on the coast with big harbors, you can't exactly replicate that in Nevada or Ohio or Indiana.

I like that idea. it would create some inefficiency, but the economic gain is more than worth it.

[Elegiac]

I like that idea. it would create some inefficiency, but the economic gain is more than worth it.

We shouldn't be encouraging further sprawl beyond the existing metropolitan boundaries, tbh.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

We shouldn't be encouraging further sprawl beyond the existing metropolitan boundaries, tbh.

It will be interesting to see what the upcoming demographic shift ends up looking like with regards to housing and the moving away from suburban sprawl in preference for more community/utility-based living arrangements.

[unbound]

Here is the conclusion of the study which states the problem clearly but offers no solution. The interactive map at the top of the page which allows you to see the rate of brain drain from 1940 through 2017 is quite revealing. It shows that starting from 1970, the rate of brain drain accelerates. For comparison, California net brain gain increased at a rate of 7% to 8% each decade, while North Dakota went from a net brain gain state in 1970 to a net brain drain state of 19.87% in 2017.

North Dakota is interesting because NDSU has very good engineering programs, but there aren't a lot of industries that hire within the state. Most grads of those programs will find jobs in different states.

[Elegiac]

It will be interesting to see what the upcoming demographic shift ends up looking like with regards to housing and the moving away from suburban sprawl in preference for more community/utility-based living arrangements.

I suspect we're probably going to see somewhat a shift towards how cities used to be constructed in places like Europe or East Asia; highly walkable and of moderate to high density.

[helebelemon]

states that defy these regional trends (for example, Illinois in the Rust Belt, and Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia in the Southeast)

Wouldn't be surprised if the study is flawed. Brain drain in Georgia is obfuscated. Our most popular profession is "business analyst" and its so popular every company is practically looking for MBAs. At any tech hub, this tends to lean towards an CS/mathematics degree that could pivot into data science very easily. I can't say the same of the people in this state. Our exceptions for good schools are GIT and Emory. GIT sends its best out of state to the best. Emory creates people in business, law, and medicine.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

I suspect we're probably going to see somewhat a shift towards how cities used to be constructed in places like Europe or East Asia; highly walkable and of moderate to high density.

Agree. I was thinking of how this landscape specifically is going to end up manifesting given the suburban sprawl already in existence around most US cities. Do you 'resurface' the suburbs? Do you have 'pocket towns' springing up outside the suburban belt? Will be interesting to see.

[Rasulis]

Wouldn't be surprised if the study is flawed. Brain drain in Georgia is obfuscated. Our most popular profession is "business analyst" and its so popular every company is practically looking for MBAs. At any tech hub, this tends to lean towards an CS/mathematics degree that could pivot into data science very easily. I can't say the same of the people in this state. Our exceptions for good schools are GIT and Emory. GIT sends its best out of state to the best. Emory creates people in business, law, and medicine.

I don’t think the study is flawed. It’s just the data for low population states can get wonky (proper technical term) if we don’t look further into the background information.

Wyoming is perfect example. At a cursory glance it didn’t make sense that a state with the highest outmigration had the best retention rate (99.9%) and at the same time a net drain of 0.2%. Until one looked at the data from the preceding years and realized that the state had been losing their highly-educated residence for a long time prior to 2017. The people that was still there in 2017, were staying there for good. Which explains the 99.9% retention rate and the net drain of almost 0%. All the leavers had already left.

[PC2]

Agree. I was thinking of how this landscape specifically is going to end up manifesting given the suburban sprawl already in existence around most US cities. Do you 'resurface' the suburbs? Do you have 'pocket towns' springing up outside the suburban belt? Will be interesting to see.

I'm pretty sure urbanization in the US has held steady at about 80:20. So I wouldn't expect much change in that. There's always going to be a need for a local economy in less populated regions, especially agricultural areas.