According to a U.S. Census Bureau study reported in the DailyNews, Indiana has the worst record in keeping its well-educated25 to 35 year olds from moving out of the state. The report statesthat Indiana cannot afford a prolonged brain drain.
A brain drain raises at least three distinct sets of issues.
First, it imposes financial loss to the region (in our case,Indiana) because very likely the majority of migrants are educatedat public expense.
Second, migration creates social welfare problems, especially ifa particular skill is in short supply, like nursing, in theregion.
Third, migration might have a significant effect, actual orpotential, on the region's rate of economic growth.
From a cosmopolitan liberal point of view, migration of educatedpeople is beneficial because it is based on free choice and aprofit-motivated movement of factors of production fromless-productive to more-productive regions of the country. Thismovement of labor might result in an increase in the total outputand, hence, be beneficial to the country as a whole.
The "regionalist" view, on the other hand, regards certainminimum levels of human capital as indispensable to a region'seconomic development. If the emigration of human capital causes theregion to fall below this minimum, the consequence is to put atrisk the growth potential of all combined resources in the region'seconomy.
I personally favor the former view, and I concur with Canadianeconomist Harry Johnson that, "Nationalism (or regionalism) is oneof the less-pleasant mental vices in which mankind indulges itself,or as one of the characteristics of childish immaturity out ofwhich (it) is hoped that people of the world will ultimatelygrow."
It should be pointed out that Indiana's brain drain might beregarded as a symptom rather than as a cause of the slow rate ofeconomic development. It is a symptom of disequilibrium between thetypical pattern of expansion of the state's educational system andthe state's capacity to absorb the graduates produced by itseducational institutions.
We also should not ignore the fact that our state universitiesprovide advanced training in branches of technical studies that aretoo specialized to be of use for the state. A case in point isPurdue University's aeronautical engineering program, which trainsstudents in a state that has no aircraft industry. The state'seducational system, like any other industry, must produce the"right" kind of products and the "right" quantities of each. Inother words, supply must be adjusted to demand.
A plausible argument, of course, can be made that Indiana mighthave a comparative advantage in the production of educated peoplefor export because of its superior educational system or a lowopportunity cost of human time spent in teaching and learning.
I might conclude that, in the absence of any persuasiveevidence, there is no significant probability that brain drain willput our state's economy at risk.
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