Pittsburgh Brain Drain - Fact or Fiction?

Probably a little of both.

However, Pittsburgh has apparently made significant strides in retaining young college graduates.

Bill Zlatos of the Tribune Review wrote a very interesting article on Pittsburgh Universities and brain drain titled "Here to Stay"

For years, Pittsburgh has suffered a loss of population- primarily due to our young people leaving for better opportunities in other regions. Our young residents ( some born in Pittsburgh, others attending our Universities from elsewhere ) were not finding the good jobs in Pittsburgh that were available in other cities. But according to the Trib article, regional economists say we have reversed that trend.

According to Pitt's Center for Social and Urban Research, Pennsylvania ranks second nationally in terms of gaining more college students in the work force than it loses, making our net gain of young, educated people approximately 12,600. Pittsburgh retained more than half of all of our graduates in 1999, up from 40% in 1994.

This is real progress in Pittsburgh's fight to retain our talented and educated youth.

As the article points out, one of the regions largest industries is education and it is unreasonable to expect that all of these students could remain in Pittsburgh. But it is imperative that the city maximize the opportunities to retain these graduates

Boston is another city with a large education "industry", and they have also been studying the problem of brain drain. A report on Boston's findings can be found at the Boston Chamber of Commerce website. I think that there is a lot of good information in this study that relates to Pittsburgh as well.
The report found that the three most important factors in a student's decision about where to live after graduation were :

• "Feel of the City"

Good place to settle down, things to do, good for young people, cultural life, neighborhoods, attractions and "happening"

• Geography

Access to outdoors and access to other cities.

• Job Opportunities

Jobs in my field.

I contend that Pittsburgh has both "feel of the city" and geography in abundance. This city is strong in the settle down, things to do, cultural life, neighborhoods and attractions categories. We have access to the outdoors at our rivers and parks, and we are within 500 miles of more than half of the nation’s most populated cities. Pittsburghers routinely travel to New York, Philadelphia, Toronto or Washington, DC for weekend getaways. We must continue to improve the cities amenities and promote them to the students that we want to attract and retain.

This brings me to Job Opportunities.

There is no question in my mind that Pittsburgh must create more high paying jobs in the region if we want to be a truly competitive city. Our business and political leaders must seize the great opportunities that we have to commercialize the technologies being created at our universities, and we as citizens must let them know that this is our highest priority. We have made great strides in this arena as well, but we need to do more. ( This has become a recurring theme on this blog )

Our universities have worked hard to become truly world class institutions that attract some of the best minds from around the world. By creating new companies based on university research, Pittsburgh can give students abundant reasons to remain Pittsburghers.

Read More at The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review