State’s public colleges prevent brain drains
It’s no secret that few of us are proud of being from Connecticut as well as wanting to stay here. I’m constantly confronting so many negative comments about our state, especially on Twitter. I get that we can do better economically, politically and socially.
But our civic pride has been lackluster for so long, and some of us want to leave Connecticut. As a native son that left our state for college, I understand moving to other states — and ultimately returning home.
There are so many residents that silently stay in Connecticut and want to remain here. In fact, many attend state community colleges and universities for its affordability and they want to be connected to their communities and families. Amy Coval’s piece, “Graduates from CT colleges, universities tend to get jobs close to school, data shows” demonstrates that recent alumni not only want to remain in our state, but they also have career options here.
Interestingly, many recent alumni — even at private colleges — stay in the New England region while some do go onto the New York City area. “The analysis looks at a three-year cohort of graduates from 4-year undergraduate institutions between 2016-2018 to see what census regions they ended up in,” Coval mentions.
University of Connecticut recent alumni are the greatest number remaining in New England and Eastern Connecticut State University has almost 90 percent staying in Connecticut. While Boston and New York City are likely areas for graduates to go for careers, Hartford and Fairfield County areas have considerable interest.
Being at Southern Connecticut State University, I wasn’t surprised to read that some 80 percent of our recent alumni stay in the state. We regularly boast that students want to stay in the New Haven area and it’s been this way for years. There’s a certain regional pride to be within an hour or so from campus. And many of our students are commuters coming from their hometowns and returning to their communities following graduation. Even this year’s SCSU incoming undergraduate and graduate students are around 90 percent from Connecticut.
What should be most notable about the recent college graduate data is that our state’s community colleges and university alumni stay in Connecticut and we should be doing more to help them with remaining here. Financial aid, tax and grant incentives help. But state funding and donations for public institutions are critical because they directly impact native sons and daughters that want to stay here. Public higher education institutions are clearly the link for keeping our own here as well as preventing a brain drain to other states.
Most importantly, the private and public sectors should play a vital role in keeping students here. Internships, fellowships co-op and apprenticeship opportunities are critical for college students. Aside from the importance of experiential learning, students get to understand various career options in their backyards. Besides, they’ll more than likely remain here and seriously consider working for an employer they already learned with. Establishing and maintaining these partnerships with public higher education institutions is essential and a reminder that we all need to work together to keep our talent here especially when so many want to stay in Connecticut.
Maybe with a public higher education initiative working with private and public sectors to retain Connecticut’s own, we can also showcase some state pride. It’s long overdue for Connecticut to shine and we could be an exemplar to other states that we proudly teach, train and retain our own. Connecticut could be that very state and become a model to our area tri-state and New England regions.