Ending Maine’s brain drain

A couple of months ago the Bangor Daily News ran an excellent series on the alarming loss of our young people to other states. The concern voiced in that series is justified. There is reason for hope, though.

First, the bad news: From 1990 to 1999, the difference between the number of people moving from Maine to other states and the number of people moving from other states to Maine was about 7,350 – roughly 0.6 percent of Maine’s population. Essentially all of this net loss of people was from northern Maine. Most of this net loss of people to other states was for those under the age of 30. Moreover, a disproportionate number of the leavers had college degrees. Although bachelors degree holders comprised less than 21 percent of Maine’s population over the age of 24 during the 1990s, this group accounted for more than 34 percent of the net migration loss of those over the age of 24.

In addition, about half of Maine’s traditional college freshmen (i.e., those going to college straight out of high school) leave the state, and only about two-thirds of this loss of college students is offset by incoming out-of-state freshmen. Although some of Maine’s college-bound young transfer back to Maine before finishing college, and some return to Maine after college graduation, the bottom line is still that we are losing many potential college graduates. In fact, we are losing more talented young people before college than after college.

The reason for the concern is that education levels and income are very closely related. On average, people with more education have significantly higher earnings and significantly lower unemployment rates. Similarly, towns, cities and states with higher proportions of college graduates have significantly higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Maine fell farther behind the rest of the nation and New England in college attainment in the 1990s, and it fell farther behind in per capita income.

The brain drain in Maine in the 1990s is consistent with the long-standing broader trend of out-migration from rural areas. Maine is a relatively rural state, and people moved from rural farms to urban employment throughout the last century. The brain drain from rural America is well known. Rural states across the country have been concerned with their brain drain for years. That is, until recently.

Now, the good news, or at least the potential good news: The brain drain from most of rural America ended in the 1990s. As a whole, rural regions attracted more people than they lost. There was a net movement of people from metropolitan regions to nonmetropolitan regions. Net migration in national nonmetro regions was about -269,000 people a year in the 1980s, but reversed to about +242,000 people a year in the 1990s. Moreover, in the last decade nonmetropolitan areas imported more college graduates than they exported. These trends reflected the broader trend that the 1990s was a good decade for most of rural America.

The same cannot be said of rural Maine, though. Although three-fourths of American nonmetropolitan counties experienced population growth in the 1990s, the reversal of the brain drain did not occur in Maine, or in the Northeast as a whole.

The recent reversal of the brain drain in rural America is a dramatic economic opportunity for rural states like Maine. Evidently technological advances in communications and transportation are creating new types of economic opportunities in many nonmetropolitan communities. Rural regions do not have to be resigned to continued economic decline relative to the rest of the country.

The brain gain has not occurred uniformly across rural America, though. Hence, a return of Maine’s college-educated sons and daughters is clearly not guaranteed. Thus, we in Maine need to learn what helped to stop the brain drain in other parts of rural America. Although it is possible that these migration trends occur independently of policies, this seems unlikely. Although we do not have to be resigned to continued relative decline, we should not simply stand by idly and wait for the national brain gain trend to reach us.

Because the reversal of the rural brain drain has been essentially unnoticed, there is no in-depth research on its causes. The policy implications of this dramatic trend reversal have not been explored. Thus, it is unclear how states like Maine can take full advantage of the changing economic playing field in rural areas. The time is ripe to change this. Research is needed on the causes of the national brain gain in rural areas to help guide policy initiatives for Maine.

With the help of the Maine congressional delegation, the University of Maine is seeking a grant to study this promising trend in order to learn how Maine can benefit from it. Anything Maine can do to join the rest of the country in reversing the outflow of talent from rural areas can only be good news for the state as a whole. As evidenced by the recent overwhelming approval of the bond package, Mainers are tired of the status quo.

Philip Trostel is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine.