Last week, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz ate with 15 University of Wisconsin students as part of Dinners On Wisconsin hosted by the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board. The students asked Mr. Cieslewicz about the city and his plans for it. Mr. Cieslewicz, in turn, asked the students about their futures following graduation. Mr. Cieslewicz, unsatisfied by the number of students who planned to stay in Madison, later told inquiring reporters, “We’ve got to do some work there.”
The problem that Mayor Dave raises of keeping newly minted UW graduates in Madison, or even in Wisconsin, is not a new one. The Wisconsin Alumni Association has already discovered that about 20 percent of in-state UW students leave the state within seven years of graduating. Many, if not most, out-of-state students flee Wisconsin after graduating, and the state has difficulty attracting college graduates from other parts of the country. With more moving out of the state than moving into it, Wisconsin’s net migration of the young, single and college-educated was in the bottom third of states in the entire nation between 1995 and 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
So, to voice the unspoken question posed by the mayor: What can we do to get new graduates to stay in or move to Madison? Or, at the very least, Wisconsin?
The conventional answer is for the state to seduce businesses that offer jobs with higher wages, require a higher level of education, and use or develop more cutting-edge technology. In short, jobs which a fresh college graduate would find attractive. Traditionally, Wisconsin has foregone wooing these types of jobs into its urban areas in favor of fostering manufacturing plants and heavy metal factories.
Milwaukee grew big and strong in the cradle of industrialization but has since attracted pitifully few high-tech industries for a city of its size. Minnesota’s Twin Cities, though they once suckled on the same industrialized teat as did Milwaukee, have in contrast managed to nurture newer, more cutting-edge technical industries, the kind to which math and science majors — the two majors most likely to leave the state of Wisconsin, according to the WAA report — are drawn. Now, Minnesota attracts more young, single and college-educated folks than it repels, far exceeding the negative rate of its neighbor, Wisconsin.
To me, this answer is only part of a larger, more entrenched problem of Wisconsin’s reputation — a problem that is harder to solve and will take longer than simple tax incentives for businesses. Wisconsin might not seem like an ideal location to the driven, ambitious, overeducated student who prioritizes the advancement of his or her career above all else. It may also not be the most attractive to the cultural aficionado who yearns for either the variety or the smug hipster sensibility of metropolitan areas.
Besides the relative glut of cutting-edge jobs, there is an unfortunate bias that matters of national impact happen elsewhere. The big bustling media centers are all in New York, and the major entertainment, software and information industries thrive in California, yet Wisconsin sits harmlessly in the middle as excitement bubbles all around it. This campus was buzzing with the arrival of “Jeopardy!” and Johnny Depp, not because such pop culture icons visit regularly, but because these figures we see on our televisions and in our movie theatres actually deigned to operate in our own state. Such an occurrence seems as rare as Halley’s comet. Smug Coast-huggers even satirize the stereotype of Wisconsin as an isolated, out-of-the-way location in various forms of entertainment, such as the movie “Dogma.”
With this unfortunate stigma attached to the state, it’s no wonder many students come to or stay in Wisconsin for the fine public education it offers but then seek their fortunes elsewhere. Breaking such a strong cultural bias by encouraging newer or more popular industries to enter the state will not happen overnight; it will take time.
In the meantime, I would assuage the mayor’s concerns with the assertion that Wisconsin, especially Madison, soars above the rest in terms of the quality of life. Though it may not be the best place to nurture a career, I contend that it is still one of the best places to raise a family. Having lived on both coasts before settling here, I can safely say that the overall safety, friendliness, education and other positive factors found in many parts of this state make it one of the best possible environments in which to live and grow.
The numbers attest to this: According to a UW study, more college graduates in their 30s and 40s — an age when they may be more concerned about having a family than getting rich or changing the world — move into Wisconsin than leave it. Appealing to recent career-driven college graduates might help the economy, but having the best jobs in the nation is not the most important thing in the world.
Jack Garigliano ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in history and English.
