How to Solve the Brain-Drain Problem
in Ohio and Greater Cleveland

Ohio, like many other states, is finding it harder to hold onto its “best and brightest,” especially its science, engineering and creative arts graduates from its top colleges and universities. This is also a major problem facing the Greater Cleveland region.

Recently, the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper completed an analysis of where Ohio's grads are going after they receive their degrees. The study concluded that Ohio is retaining 72% (352,800) of the 490,000 graduates included in the 23-institution study remained in Ohio. The other 28% moved to other states. On the surface, this does not sound all that bad.

Also, the study found that 65% of the state’s doctorate grads, 51% of its masters grads and 31% of its bachelor degree grads in the sciences, engineering and the creative arts bolt Ohio in favor of other locations, such as Chicago, NY, Washington DC, San Francisco, LA, Atlanta, and Boston. Even Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have been successful in attracting a significant number of Ohio's graduates. As the Plain Dealer correctly concludes, this is a major problem that could be limiting our ability to reach our state and local economic development goals. For more information about the Plain Dealer article, click here.

Most major cities and many rural areas are very concerned about the “brain drain” problem. The key question is: What can Ohio and Greater Cleveland actually do about the problem? Is this a problem that we can fix? Will the problem grow in the future?

Here are some thoughts, which build upon the Plain Dealer study.

First, this is a problem in many cities and regions across the country. Ohio is not alone. Have any of these other cities fixed their brain drain problem? From what I can see, most places with the problem have not done much to reduce it. Many are trying.

Places with declining economies and those offering insufficient cultural and social amenities to attract young educated people are having the hardest time. Some would say that is the “boat” Greater Cleveland might be in right now. To our credit, we have many wonderful cultural institutions, like the Cleveland Orchestra. We also have many first-class health and educational institutions, like The Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University.

How important is it to be a “cool” place? Carnegie Mellon's Richard Florida says it’s very important. Former Case Western Reserve University professor Paul Gottlieb says that amenities play an essential role in attracting high tech businesses and people. Many other researchers agree with these two academics.

I believe that amenities are very important, but the presence of high quality employers offering the best jobs and local cost of living economics could be even more important factors driving residential choice by talented people in the near term future. The successful cities luring talented and creative people offer the right “combination” of these things and more.

With any problem, it is important to set reasonable expectations about how much of the problem can be solved. Neither Ohio nor Greater Cleveland has done a good job in this regard in the past. As a result, we launch a solution and nobody knows how much it is working. For example, it is very unrealistic to assume that we could or even should retain 100% of those we educate and graduate. I think the most important thing for Ohio and Greater Cleveland is to keep a steady “in-flow” of new blood (talent) all the time.

Studies by the World Future Society, the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, the Hudson Institute and other groups suggest that people will change not only jobs, but also careers, more frequently in the future. This suggests that we need to provide more help to people here now on how they can successfully “reinvent” their work lives. This is more than job training. Also, people will be more mobile in the future because they must be to find new opportunities. Once again, this gets back to our definition of what the problem is and our expectations about solving it.

One of the most important questions we must face in tackling the brain drain problem is this one: “To what extent will people follow jobs or will jobs follow people?” The answer is both will continue to occur. Right now, more high quality jobs are following people. We should count on the fact that both will occur in the future. This is not a simple either/or problem. Jobs and people will continue to seek out the major knowledge centers worldwide in the future.

Ohio and Greater Cleveland officials should assume that they must “compete” for talent of all types in the future, especially the most gifted and talented. This is actually a very old problem. Companies have always competed for these people to fill their most important jobs. Universities have always had to compete for the smartest students. Here is another important point. Those with the best degrees and other socioeconomic advantages have always had more choices than those with less. Our economic development efforts need to work on helping all segments of the community succeed and prosper, not just the top ten percent. Actually those with fewer advantages need our help more. We need to remind ourselves of this reality.

Let’s return to this expectation issue. How much of the problem should Ohio and Greater Cleveland expect to solve?

First, is a 72% overall retention rate good or bad? I think it’s pretty good. It's certainly not terrible from an overall standpoint. Frankly, I thought this percentage would be even lower for Ohio. Where we have a problem is in the science, engineering and creative arts areas. This is where some research comparisons to other states and metro areas would be helpful. Personally, I think a metro area analysis of this problem is more useful than one at the state level. When people choose a place to live and work, they look much more closely at local and regional factors and conditions.

One thing we can count on is that the economy over the next decade is not likely to be much like the one we had in the past decade. Technology and globalization will see to that. Also, the amount and type of economic growth we experience is likely to be different as well. Will we see another nineties’ boom? Right now, it doesn’t look like it. If it does occur, it will not be based around the Internet. The next is likely to be centered on the life sciences, which is already capturing more of our attention and money.

As I look at economic development worldwide, I see some incredible changes in the “international division of labor” taking place. For many years, we worried about factory jobs leaving the country, and we still do. Now, the concern is focused on the loss of information and technology-based jobs. The “knowledge economy” is coming to places like China, India, Korea and other developing nations. I see the signs in my research everyday. These places will not be just “cheap places to do simple things.” We need to consider these realities as we work to shape a solution to the brain drain problem in Ohio and Greater Cleveland.
National security will continue to affect immigration policy, which could alter the in-flow of foreign students into U.S. universities. Safety and security concerns will be much larger ongoing concerns worldwide, including here in America.

There were many high tech jobs available in most of the out-of-state cities Ohio lost its grads to in the 1990's. How many “sexy tech” jobs will these cities develop in the next decade? Only those jobs that are absolutely needed will be created in the future. Right now stock market investors are not enthralled with Internet company stocks, especially the "fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants" types we saw in the last decade. These are important issues to address in the next round of analysis that builds on the Plain Dealer's research.

Given the risky and uncertain state of current world affairs, we can count on two developments at least in the near term. First, as long as the economy continues to limp along, more people will stay in or return to college because there are not enough good jobs out there. College enrollments are growing now in most states.

Second, with a weakened economy everywhere, people may actually be somewhat less mobile in the next 2-3 years because they cannot afford to. Place shifting will not do much for those hot-shot grads that want to go to the Bay area and other "cool" places. Right now, there are not many available jobs there.

My recent economic development strategy work in California indicates to me that there are many people out-of-work in the Silicon Valley and other tech hotbeds. Guess what? You cannot afford to live in these places unless you make a lot of money. More people are leaving the very expensive coastal areas and settling in the Central Valley, where the cost of living is much lower and the pace of life is less hectic. A number are also moving out of state to communities like Henderson, Nevada, Prescott, Arizona and similar places. All this to say, moving away from Ohio may not be the best thing for these graduates in the next couple of years. Of course, if they stay, can we provide enough good jobs for them? That is also an important expectation issue we must address.

What action should Ohio and Greater Cleveland leaders take to solve their brain drain problem? I think that we need better thinking about this issue, and we need to set realistic quantitative goals that we work toward over the next decade.

The Plain Dealer article says we lost 28% of the 490,000 graduates over the last decade from the 23 Ohio institutions that were surveyed. This means we lost about 137,000 of them in the past ten years.

How much of this problem are we going to try to fix in the next decade? Allow me to answer that question with two related questions: 1) How much of this “loss” is a “problem?” and 2) “How much of the problem do we need to fix to grow our economy and increase prosperity in local communities?” That is the economic development question.

Let’s take a look at what the State of Ohio’s most recent ten-year occupational forecast has to say about the future “demand” for some of our knowledge workers. Ohio will need about 26,000 computer software engineers in 2010, which is 12,000 more than we have right now. We will need 1,400 chemical engineers, which is 40 more than we have now. We will need 4,400 electronic engineers, which is 200 more than we have now. We will need 2,600 life scientists, which is 400 more than we have right now. These are just a few examples illustrating how we should start thinking about the brain drain problem. We should start by looking at the “demand” side of the equation, and allow that to guide our decisions about how much “supply” we will need.

For illustration sake, let's assume that our overall analysis concludes that Ohio will need 110,000 scientists, engineers and creative artists in the year 2010. Furthermore, we find that we need to increase our supply of engineers, scientists and creative arts workers by 25 percent over the next decade to meet forecasted demand. This means Ohio must develop or attract 27,500 people with these skills to fill jobs in these three broad occupational areas. We must remind ourselves that we also must retain the people we have working in these jobs now, and find replacements for those who leave these jobs through retirement and turnover. How are we going to tackle this complex challenge?

First, what strategies might help? Here are the basic strategy options: 1) increase the supply of high quality jobs to attract this talent; 2) market more aggressively to attract new and retain existing talent; 3) provide greater incentives to keep existing talent; 4) train more people in these fields; 5) change our "amenity mix" to make Ohio communities more attractive to these talented people; and 6) change our culture and values, which is in part what Richard Florida recommends. I think we need a mix of all six. None of these jobs will be easy.

Who should be a part of the solution? The team should include the business and institutional employers that need these people. They stand to gain or lose the most. Second, the colleges and universities themselves should play a stronger role in this area, especially in ensuring that their students’ “educational experience” is a valuable and high quality one. In the Greater Cleveland region, the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education (NOCHE) should play a role. Third, our economic development, community and government leaders have a role to play. Fourth, our foundations need to invest in talent retention and attraction initiatives. Finally, there is the need to create momentum through new groups like the Greater Cleveland’s Connection Series and Cleveland Clicks.

We need a plan to apply the resources of these groups to the six solutions identified earlier. Maybe Governor Taft should challenge Ohio’s communities and regions to develop talent retention and attraction strategies, and maybe the State of Ohio should put some money into these initiatives.

In conclusion, some mix of all six strategies will be needed in all Ohio’s metro areas. Some strategies may be more important in some Ohio cities than others. That should dictate the strategy mix. I would advise against putting all our resources into just ‘marketing.” Marketing is needed and it is a sexy thing to do, but it is only part of the solution. I would also urge these efforts to approach their job in a “performance-based” way so we can measure their success.

These are some immediate ideas sparked by the recent Plain Dealer article. We will continue to think about this issue and hopefully provide some additional guidance on how to tackle this problem.