by Annie Scott
May 16, 2009

That giant sucking sound this time of year is Michigan’s infamous Brain Drain. As college graduation season ramps up, I find myself wondering how many of my fellow Mitten grads will be fortunate enough to find a job in their home state. And I wonder how many will jump into the drain to seek greener pastures outside the state lines.

According to a recent article in The Detroit News, that latter figure now stands at roughly 50 percent. The number from my alma mater in Ann Arbor is even worse at 53 percent. The News’ analysis of Census Bureau data shows a net loss of 18,000 college-educated residents in 2007. These are staggering figures considering the amount of resources the state invests in its students.

I happen to love Michigan and think it is an amazing place to live. Yet somehow, as soon as I graduated from college, I ended up getting sucked into the drain myself. Even after my tuition was paid by the MET program. I still wrestle with the guilt.

After all, I knowingly abandoned my beloved home state at a time when it desperately needed to hold on to my peers and me. It needed us to start showing a return on the state’s investment in our development. I had received a fantastic public school education and finally would have a chance to start repaying it. But I didn’t.

I could have looked harder for a job in-state. I could have resolved to stick around and get to know the non-student side of beautiful Ann Arbor. I could have fought against the tide that was sweeping up so many of my colleagues. But I didn’t.

Instead, I was selfish. I watched silently from the sidelines as herds of my college friends were wooed by Chicago-based corporate recruiters on campus. I opted out of recruiting fairs upon learning there weren’t any Michigan-based companies attending that I was even remotely interested in working for. I began to let myself be guided by my ambition to branch out and go somewhere new, where I didn’t know a soul. Somewhere that offered abundant quality career opportunities and I could take a significant risk. In short, I wanted an urban environment full of new experiences, challenges and adventures. I wanted to go somewhere new.

Ultimately, my decision was guided by two key factors: 1) the solitary decent job offer I received was based in Washington, DC; and 2) knowing full well that I would return in a few years when it came time to have a family of my own, I decided I needed to become a temporary coastal dweller in one of the fast-moving, big cities I had visited years earlier.

The steps being taken by groups as diverse as Michigan Future Inc. and Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan and the Detroit Regional Chamber to address this widening drain are encouraging. Without a doubt, increasing the number of college graduates and creating a great many more high-quality jobs by recruiting innovative companies that attract creative, talented, young workers must be major priorities. The “Cool Cities” and “interninmichigan.com” initiatives also seem to be on the right track to reach a fair share of the drain-bound masses.

But there is another group that likely will not be reached through these efforts — those who don’t even consider staying in Michigan right out of college because their sights are set elsewhere.

As the Detroit chamber’s Patti Jones observed to the News, “how many are leaving is bad enough. What is even more disturbing is that a large percentage didn’t even look (for a job) here.”

Indeed, a significant number of my college acquaintances had no intention whatsoever of staying in Michigan. Some figured they wouldn’t be able to find a job, let alone a job they wanted, so why bother. Others figured it was time to escape the land of five-month winters. Still others were so enamored with the prospect of following their dream job — that existed only in their dream city — that it was the only option. One-third of the grads who left Michigan in 2007 reportedly had job offers in the state but fled anyway.

That’s the group I’m most interested in — the ones who don’t even consider staying because they either think they can’t find what they want in Michigan or are wholly focused on wanting something beyond the Mitten’s borders. At least for a few years.

So how can the state keep that group from leaving? Quite simply, it can’t. I can make up all the excuses I want, but the fact is I knew I wanted to live in other places before settling back down in Michigan. Nothing would have changed my course.

So, instead of focusing solely on preventing young professionals from leaving, it’s just as important to zero in on providing incentives for those who have left to return to Michigan, enriched by the skills, knowledge and experience they have gained “abroad.” To encourage them to come back to the place that prepared them for their future and that’s working hard to redesign its own, more promising future.

The MichAgain program holds promise, but funding has been elusive. Similar to a thus-far successful program called Generation Iowa that distributes mailings and newsletters to keep public university grads in the loop wherever they are, MichAgain could be a step in the right direction. But much more could be done, especially once more new jobs are available. Giving people who have already fled down the drain a reason to come back could have significant benefits for everyone.

A number of my friends and I still want to move back to Michigan in a few years, once we have finished exploring and learning lessons from people with different backgrounds and experiences. We’re not deserters. And we’re not waiting for Michigan’s economy to suddenly turn golden and unemployment to disappear. We’re just waiting for the right opportunity.

Annie Scott lives and works in San Diego and sends dispatches back to her beloved Michigan.