Indiana desperately wants Catherine Beechler to stay.\nThe IU senior will graduate this December and is in the process of finding a job after college. Millions of dollars and countless hours of planning by state officials have already gone into convincing Beechler that Indiana will offer the best jobs, wages, and lifestyle. \nBut she's not convinced. \n"Part of it is the glitz and glamour of going somewhere else after college," she said, standing in her apartment decorated with photos of New York and a framed copy of Playbill.\nFor Beechler and many other graduating seniors, the prospect of leaving Indiana for better jobs or a flashier lifestyle is tempting. However, the continual flow of graduates to different states creates a "brain drain" that affects the Indiana economy and education system. Despite many new job programs and a lower cost of living, graduates like Beechler are still unsure if Indiana is the right place for them to find employment.\nEducators and businesses have been buzzing about the brain drain since the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute published its findings about the trend in 1999. According to its report, 36.2 percent of Hoosier graduates leave the state after college, in addition to the 89.2 percent of non-residents who go to school here and find jobs outside of the state. \nThe 2000 U.S. Census further underscored the problem when it revealed that only 19.4 percent of Indiana residents above the age of 25 were college-educated, which ranks Indiana 47th in states with the most college graduates.\nAlthough Indiana as a state ranks low in the number of residents with college degrees, Monroe County has the second highest percentage of adults with bachelor's degrees in the state (39.6 percent). The surrounding counties, however, do not have such high rankings in higher education. In Greene County, only 10.5 percent of the residents have a four-year degree or higher. The county also ranked 48th in the state for the number residents age 18 to 64, a statistic that worries Linda Williamson, president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation.\n"(The 18 to 64 age group) works to pay for government services, parks and cultural attractions. The fewer working-age adults in an area, the worse off the area will be," she said. "Brain drain not only affects economic development, but living standards as well."\nIn its 1999 report's executive summary, the FPI attributed the loss of graduates to Indiana's traditional emphasis on manufacturing jobs. Since 1989, three out of every four new jobs created nationwide have been in professional and managerial occupations, which tend to have higher salaries. However, Indiana jobs are concentrated in the two middle-paying areas of machine operators and craft occupations, which ranked last in growth nationwide during the 1990s.\n"It's not that we don't produce qualified graduates -- we just can't employ them in Indiana," said John Applegate, associate dean of the IU School of Law.
Emphasis on entrepreneurship\nAs part of the effort to fight the brain drain, the law school has partnered with the IU Kelley School of Business to create a legal clinic which will assist starter businesses in the life sciences and biotechnology. Many educators believe entrepreneurship will keep more graduates from leaving Indiana.\n"(Small businesses) create jobs that educated people would like to have," Applegate said. In addition, business growth stimulates the state's economy. "In order to be a big enough player to have an economic impact, companies need to grow, and size raises legal and business issues that these companies do not have the knowledge or money to deal with on their own. The clinic will help them deal with these situations so they can expand."\nIU's law and business entrepreneurship program is one of many initiatives funded by a $38.9 million grant from the Lilly Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to funding programs in education, religion and community development. The foundation awarded grants to 37 Indiana colleges and universities as part of its Initiative to Promote Opportunity Through Educational Collaborations. Schools must use the funding to support internship and placement programs that encourage graduates to stay in Indiana.\nBesides the collaboration between the law and business schools, IU's College of Arts and Sciences will also collaborate with the business school to create the Johnson Center for Science and Innovation. A venture lab in the center will match business students with entrepreneurial companies to assist the businesses with issues like growth and branding. \n"This program will give students excellent experience and provide businesses with help they couldn't get elsewhere," said Tricia McDougall, the William L. Haeberle Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Kelley School of Business. \nFor McDougall, internships and entrepreneurship are the keys to retaining in-state graduates. \n"If we can get people to spend the early parts of their career here, they're more likely to invest their entire career here," she said. \nThe Lilly grant will also fund internships for students with Indiana companies, many of which could not afford to pay interns before the grant. Because they could not pay interns, the companies lost many qualified students to bigger (and usually out-of-state) companies, McDougall said. Salaried in-state internships "directly keep bright students in Indiana," she said.\nIn addition to internship connections, qualified students have a new method of finding in-state jobs with the service IN.JobCentral.com. Launched in September, the Web site links students to employers posting only Indiana jobs.\n"For the first time ever, Indiana students will see entry level jobs in all major fields," said Josh Akers, regional vice president for DirectEmployers, the non-profit consortium that runs the site. "It's quick and easy in the students' faces -- here are the companies with jobs."\nDirectEmployers began the site to recruit graduates for its member companies, Akers said. Now, more than 217,000 employers are part of the network, including several Fortune 500 companies.\n"We've got jobs from the big boys," Akers said. "We want to make people aware of the Fortune 500 companies here in Indiana."\nSince it went active this September, the site has received 1.3 million unique visitors from Indiana and 20,000 from Kentucky or outside of the Hoosier state. Akers believes the six percent of out-of-state visitors is an important statistic for Indiana's economy.\n"Not only do we want to retain our talent, but we want to bring other talent into the pool," Akers said.
Home, sweet home\nDespite the efforts of DirectEmployers and other organizations to create awareness of the high-tech, managerial positions in Indiana, Beechler said she believes students will still leave the state. \nGrowing up in the Indianapolis suburb of Cicero, Beechler resented the everyday routine of central Indiana.\n"I don't know what else there is to do," she said. "They're bringing in the arts, cleaning up the town (Indianapolis) ... Indy's great, it's just not for everyone."\nBeechler's dream job would "involve politics in some way," she said. The English and political science major has had two politically-related internships, one with the Indiana Senate in Indianapolis and the other with a crisis management and lobbying firm in Washington, D.C. \nAlthough she wants to move to Washington after graduation, moving back home is definitely an option. \n"There's great education, a good place to raise kids," she said. "It's safe. I could see myself raising a family here." \nBeechler's own family understands the Hoosier state's appeal. Her sister-in-law grew up in Indiana, but left to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After she became a doctor, she and her husband came back to Indiana to start her practice and a family.\n"Job-wise, I think the after-30 group is what really matters," she said. "People come back to Indiana to raise a family eventually. They don't leave forever."\nIndiana might be a great place to live, but Beechler is skeptical about her in-state job prospects. \n"I'm not looking directly to leave Indiana, but with government and politics, more of what I want to do is in D.C.," she said. "I used to think I hated Indiana growing up. All rural, small towns -- now I see more of its appeal." \nBeechler said she believes the brain drain isn't just a result of the job market. \n"Colleges push us to go see a lot of places while we're young and unattached," she said. "Singles want to experience other places before they settle down."\nFor her, the real measure of the brain drain isn't how many students stay in-state after graduation; it's the number of Hoosiers who come back later in life. \nDirectEmployers' Akers also followed his job prospects back to Indiana. After graduating from IU, Akers moved to New York to work for another Internet job site, www.monster.com. However, his desire to return to Indiana brought him to Indianapolis and DirectEmployers. \n"I soon realized that while other states, cities, jobs, environments and the overall 'scene' can be dramatically different in other places, Indiana does have the same amount of diversity, opportunity, beauty and range of culture as other states and major metros," he said. "Sometimes people just need to look a little deeper."\nIndiana might not have a big-name city like Chicago or Los Angeles, but Akers believes it offers something many other states don't have -- a low cost of living.\n"Because Indiana does not have a real identity, it is hard to put a finger on what makes Indiana truly special," he said. "However, if people take the time to look past some of the negative aspects of Indiana, they will see that we as a state offer the same opportunities as any other state, while at the same time providing the ability for its residents to have and maintain a quality of life that far exceeds many other locations."\nDespite his optimism about Indiana's quality of life, Akers knows the consequences of a prolonged brain drain.\n"If Indiana continues on the path we're on now, there will be a huge gap in the talent pool, even if great jobs are created," he said. \nAkers hopes that services like IN.JobCentral.com will convince more graduates that Indiana already has the jobs they are looking for. However, no matter how many job programs and incentives are established for graduates, students like Catherine Beechler still hold the key to plugging Indiana's brain drain.\n"I think a lot of people can find jobs here," she said. "It all depends on what you want to do with your life."\n-- Contact staff writer Maria Fragnoli at mfragnol@indiana.edu.
