Although city officials would love to plug up the “brain drain” of University of Wisconsin graduates leaving Madison, state budget cuts are making it more difficult for students to stay in the area.
Karen Stauffacher of the School of Business Career Center said the cuts have affected state, university and full-time employment.
“There is clearly an impact, and vacated positions aren’t getting filled,” Stauffacher said.
However, Leslie Kohlberg, associate director of Letters and Science/Human Ecology Career Services, said Madison has always been a difficult place to find employment, even with the best of economies.
“Madison is a very educated and highly-credentialed city,” Kohlberg said. “For positions that say they require a bachelor’s degree, 80 to 90 percent of the applicants have master’s degrees. Madison is an overly educated and underemployed kind of place.”
She said the competition tends to edge out recent grads.
“It’s not the credentials, it’s the competition,” she said.
However, she said students should stay motivated if they want a job in the Madison area, because large employers such as American Family, Epic Systems and the biotech field are growing industries. She suggested setting a time limit for the Madison area job search and securing a “plan b” if the search does not go well.
The effects of the state budget cuts on University of Wisconsin employment vary between departments. Some UW research programs take in funding from a variety of sources that can absorb the money shortages.
Sarah Nottestad of the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Human Resources department said the center has a normal amount of positions available because their budget is not affected as dramatically as other departments’, although other medical school departments that generate funding primarily through the state may tell a different story.
Competition for graduate teaching and research assistanceships has increased, and the number of available spots has declined, according to Catharine Gartelos of the UW Graduate Student Council. She said the UW graduate school is piled with applications this year.
“Based on my personal experience, I would encourage recent undergrad students to seek other options right now,” Gartelos said of UW graduate school.
Kohlberg said, although Madison’s job openings are competitive, students should not get discouraged.
“One of the reasons a large number of students leave Madison is because it’s tough,” Kohlberg said. “You might have to start at a position with less responsibility for less money, but don’t think that there is nothing here.”
Approximately 41 percent of UW-Madison alumni, 118,048 out of 290,412 UW graduates, currently live in Wisconsin, according to Angie Nash of the UW Alumni Association.
Letters & Science Career Services Director Ann Groves Lloyd said she has never heard Wisconsin employers complain about students declining a job offer solely because the location is in Wisconsin.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said one of his priorities for Madison is tapping into the student body’s interests to entice more of them to stay in Madison. He said if Madison has an active nightlife, eclectic music, natural areas and an interesting lively street life, students would want to stay in Madison, in turn attracting more employers to Madison and boosting the city’s economy.
“Businesses go where the workers are,” Cieslewicz said. “If a city is good for students, it’s likely to have a strong economy.”
