Data: Graduates from Conn. colleges get jobs close to school

When Doug Wardlaw was a senior in high school weighing where to go to college, one thing he said he did not know is how much the decision would drive where he ended up finding a job after graduation.

Wardlaw, 23, is now a UConn alum and works in finance in New York City. Originally from New Haven, Wardlaw went to the day prep school, Hopkins School, for high school. His senior year, he juggled offers from various colleges wanting him to play football for their programs. After attending Union College for a year, he transferred to UConn.

As an economics major and data analytics minor, Wardlaw said that he had always thought New York would be the best place to go for his career. However, there were reasons beyond finance that made it easy to accept New York as his new home.

“It was kind of like the perfect storm of being around people I knew, being close to home — [ just] a train ride away — but also being far enough where I can begin this new chapter of my life but not be [all the way] in California,” Wardlaw said.

And it seems most grads from the Nutmeg State feel similarly in terms of moving far from their college roots. In fact, most alumni from Connecticut colleges and universities stick around and find jobs in the New England area, data shows.

CT Insider analyzed data from the U.S. Census’ Post Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) survey to see where graduates from participating schools were employed one year out of school.

The analysis looks at a three-year cohort of graduates from 4-year undergraduate institutions between 2016 to 2018 to see what census regions they ended up in. “Employment” is counted if graduates have a full-time job one year after college.

Out of the over 37,000 college graduates included in the data, 73% of them ended up in the New England region, which includes states like Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont, and is home to big cities like Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and more.

Apart from the New England region, the next most popular areas for Connecticut graduates to move were the Middle Atlantic region (N.Y., N.J., Pa.), the South Atlantic region (Del., Fla., Ga., Md., N.C, S.C, Va.,

W.Va.) and the Pacific region (Calif., Ore., Wash.) respectively.

Although UConn had the greatest number of graduates stay in New England (over 8,600), Eastern Connecticut State had the highest percentage of their graduates from 2016 -2018 stay in the region, over 89 percent, while UConn had just over 77 percent of their graduates stay in New England.

Mitchell University in New London had the most variation in where its alumni ended up employed, with only 25 percent staying in New England. The university had the highest percentage of its graduates in five of the nine regions compared to the other Connecticut schools.

Data from these schools also showed that most students do not stray too far from their hometowns when choosing where to go to college. UConn reported that 77 percent of their undergraduate students were Connecticut residents and Central Connecticut State University reported 96 percent of their undergraduates were from Connecticut.

Eastern Connecticut State University — which had the highest percentage of graduates employed in New England after graduating — reported that 90 percent of their undergraduates were from the Nutmeg State.