Western states are among the leaders in a category that isn’t a good one to be a leader in — a “brain drain.”
That’s the word from 24/7 Wall Street, which bills itself as providing “Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. & Global Equity Investors.”
The firm’s study looked at factors like standardized math and reading scores, population percentage with bachelor’s degrees, and white-collar employment.
Of the ten worst-ranked states, five were in the West: Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho and Colorado. Several others were close by: Texas, Alaska and Oklahoma. The other two, Michigan and Iowa, were in the Midwest.
For some specifics, Utah had “the fifth-worst increase in the nation for adults with bachelor’s degrees from 2000 to 2009. Since 2000, Wyoming had “one of the worst improvements in the country in graduation rates” and “all but four states had better improvements in math scores.”
In Arizona, “the number of adults in the state with a high school diploma decreased,” and the same was true of Idaho. Colorado has “the second-highest number of bachelor’s degrees per adult,” but reading scores have dropped, as well as per-capita white-collar employment.
Colorado also has some serious funding issues with education, but when it comes to colleges and universities, that’s a long tradition. About 20 years ago, I ran some numbers and discovered that Colorado is a major importer of college graduates.
That makes economic sense, in a way. Running colleges and universities is expensive, and the institutions can embarrass you with recruiting and plagiarism scandals. Let other states bear those burdens, and reap the benefits when their smart people move to Colorado.
But it appears that could be changing. And if Colorado can no longer rely on imports, it might have to start growing its own, despite the tight budgets.
Essays in the Range blog are not written by High Country News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.
Ed Quillen is a freelance writer in Salida, Colo.
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