Today’s the day the letters and e-mails go out. By the end of the week, Maine’s best and brightest high school seniors should know if they have been accepted at the country’s most competitive and prestigious colleges: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Stanford, Brown, MIT and others.

For me, it’s a day of mixed emotions. For the past eight years, I’ve had a ringside seat to the process; I’ve interviewed applicants from eastern and northern Maine, for my alma mater, Harvard. The good news is that Maine’s families and secondary schools produce a small group of outstanding students who are top-notch and competitive with the national pool of applicants these highly selective colleges see. In general, Harvard accepts one out of every nine applicants; in northern and eastern Maine, our average has been about one out of eight, a seemingly small, but significant improvement over the national average.

The numbers only begin to tell the story. The high school seniors from this area who apply to Harvard and other competitive colleges, even the ones who don’t get in, can typically do the work. They are bright, articulate, motivated, organized and achievers in academics, athletics and the larger community. It is not at all unusual to see a Harvard applicant with well over 1,400 board scores, who is captain of one or more sports teams, an officer in student government or other student activity, and a community volunteer. Moreover, students like this come from schools all over eastern and northern Maine, not just the bigger, more urban schools. Students from Aroostook, Piscataquis and Washington have all been accepted at Harvard, and done well, as have students from schools in greater Bangor, Ellsworth and MDI. These students are outstanding in every sense of the word, and parents, schools and communities should be very proud of them. They are the leaders of tomorrow.

Here’s the bad news: it doesn’t look like more than a few of those who will leave Maine next September to get the best available education will return here to raise a family and pursue a career. This phenomenon is neither new nor unique to Maine. Six years ago, one of the few who did return, Yellow Light Breen, raised in Palmyra, gave the honors graduate address at the Harvard commencement, speaking about how colleges like Harvard took in promising young men and women from Montana, Maine, Appalachia and Alabama and sent them out four years later with educations (and often a few years after that, with graduate and professional degrees) to New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. That speech received publicity at the time, but little was done to follow up. Type “Brian Drain” onto your computer’s search engine and the screen will fill with articles published in Canada about how Canada’s best and brightest are being enticed away by better opportunities in the United States. That phenomenon implicates how the two countries’ tax policies encourage individual achievement and entrepreneurship, but that’s a story for another day.

Part of the problem is the “bright lights big city” phenomenon. It’s more than a 1930’s movie plot that the best and the brightest want to take on the world and see their name in lights on Broadway. Around the end of World War I, there was a song whose lyrics went something like this, “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris?” Although I’ve made the choice to come back to Maine, and I’m glad I did, on one level I can understand and accept the decision of those who want to make it in the big city. It is too early to tell if the aftereffects of Sept. 11 will change that tune.

The rest of the problem is more disturbing: lack of opportunity, lack of jobs, and lack of infrastructure to support those jobs. To be sure, there are some opportunities here for professionals, but there are virtually no top-level opportunities in information technology, financial services, biotechnology and manufacturing. The number of publicly traded companies based in Maine is low. This is significant because it indicates that the capital markets have found better investments elsewhere. The irony is that Maine sees a number of Fortune 500 executives and others who have succeeded in the world every summer at the cottages and retreats throughout the same geographical area from which these young people exit. These people who “can make it anywhere” have come to Maine for what it has to offer at least a few weeks a year.

This fall’s election cycle involves races for U.S. senator, two congressional seats and governor, as well as the entire Legislature. It’s time to begin a dialogue and a debate, which will address the key issue for Maine’s future. Everything I have said here about Maine’s best and brightest applies across the board to every high school senior. Why should they stay here when there are better jobs elsewhere? What are we as citizens going to do to reverse the brain drain? What policy should we pursue? Maine is educating at least some of its students very well, but what is the plan to keep that educational capital here in Maine, where it can be put to good use for the benefit of the state as a whole?

Several eastern and northern Maine counties are losing population; one or two well-educated, committed entrepreneurs and public servants could make a difference. Fifteen dollar an hour jobs are great, and are much needed, but we as a state need to think about what will lure young people who could really make a difference – executives, researchers, professionals and entrepreneurs – back to Maine after they have finished their education.

People who could make the difference exist, they are here now, but they will be leaving Maine in September to further their educations. I am happy for them and their achievement, but sad for our state, which my never benefit from their many talents unless we do something beyond wringing our hands over their departure.

Charles E. Gilbert III is an attorney practicing in Bangor. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Harvard or any other institution mentioned in the article.