Educational braindrain

Charts and analysis from New York Times

Not so long ago, these arrows often went in different directions. They represent the flow of students leaving their home state to attend colleges elsewhere.

Two trends combine: states have cut their funding to public universities and those schools have raised tuition for their accustomed population of local students. This forces local students to look for other options. Meanwhile, other universities try to make up some of their loss of state support by importing out of state students who pay at higher rates.

Since college graduates often don't return home, net receiving states likely get a leg up. Certainly that's what the moderate out-of-state tuition at state universities did for California in my generation. UC Berkeley was far cheaper than an east coast school of equal prominence; ergo, with some false starts, I ended up a Californian. And I'm not alone.

These days, I watch young people go wherever is economically feasible to complete their education. The sending states, including mine, are loosing out.