Student Project Explores Why Youth Leave Maine
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3756
ORONO — It comes as little surprise that the majority of young people leaving Maine after college do so in pursuit of better jobs and higher pay, but research by two UMaine graduate students shows cultural attractions also serve as a virtual Pied Piper of Hamelin leading youth away.
The richly diversified financial, commercial and entertainment opportunities Portland’s Old Port section, for instance, are typical attractions for young people compared to the perceived lack of such vibrancy north of Augusta, says Rachel Bain, whose master’s degree thesis was a study of youth migration.
In addition to job opportunities, the Bangor area also needs more socially oriented businesses like the Whig & Courier Pub and more boutique businesses, not more box stores and retail jobs, she says.
“I don’t think it starts with the cultural piece,” says Bain. “I think it starts with giving them something to do and then making it more attractive for them to stay.”
Bain and her research partner, Jill Bachman, interviewed or sent surveys to hundreds of University of Maine students, either freshmen or seniors, to see how student views changed between those two groups. Students were ages18-24. Though disappointed to receive responses from only about 14 percent, Bain says she believes the research is representative, and worthy of review by Maine’s economic development and municipal policy-makers.
Their results parallel results from other studies of Maine’s so-called “brain drain,” but Bain says what’s different, and potentially more revealing, is that her study, titled “Anywhere but Maine,” goes beyond census data. The research was part of a course in public administration and was supervised by faculty advisor Ken Nichols, associate professor of public administration.
“What we felt was lacking was the personal touch from the people in that age group, the actual voices,” she says. “We wanted to after it from a different angle. We wanted to get these young adults point of view as to why they wanted to leave Maine. We wanted to see what they were thinking.”
Of 200 surveys gathered from graduating UMaine seniors and 150 from freshmen at the Orono campus, 71 percent said they planned to leave Maine after graduating. Bain says she and Bachman are confident most first year students who claimed residence in Maine were from Maine originally, and that the majority of seniors were students who also went to high school in-state.
While the two top reasons for the out-migration were professional opportunity and livable wages, respectively, the third biggest reason, according to 26 percent of those who returned surveys, was “other,” which respondents explained was mostly greater cultural experiences and increased diversity.
Forty percent of the first year students cited a lack of cultural and diversity as reasons they probably would leave Maine later, while only 20 percent of the seniors blamed a lack of culture and diversity. Bain infers that the disparity reflects differing values, between freshmen, who are not immediately worried about finding a job, and seniors, who by graduation, have already begun job-hunting.
Thirty-one percent of the graduating seniors cited a lack of jobs in Maine as a reason to leave the state, while 38 percent said a general lack of opportunity was enough reason to leave.
Asked about overall confidence in the strength of the Maine economy to provide “a secure future for new college graduates,” about three-quarters said Maine could not offer graduates “the aspects of life they would need in order to be successful and secure” here.
Many students whose residences were north of Augusta indicated they would leave the area, but not necessarily the state, Bain says, noting that southern Maine was cited as a destination for some students.
While many students were predisposed to leave the state after college, Bain says she was most struck by people who said they felt forced to leave.
“What worried me is I kept hearing ‘I love this state, I wish I could stay.’ They want to stay but they feel they can’t. This was the saddest part,” Bain says. “These people were looking at me and saying my family’s here and I wish I didn’t have to leave.”
Bain and Bachman’s report suggests the departure of young people creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. As young people leave and the population becomes more saturated with older and aging residents, services and amenities become geared more toward older people and less toward the young.
Maine policymakers, the women’s report says, should develop a strategic plan to address the concerns of college-educated young adults, including a commitment to public transportation. In addition to the pursuit of economic development that generates jobs and income attractive to young people, Maine also should reevaluate “social goals.”
They also suggest the possibility of a loan repayment assistance program, through which college grads would receive state help in repaying college loans in exchange for a commitment to live in state, or expanded internship programs to help students acquire experience in areas of academic fields of study.
“I would say the nature of this age group is to explore and to find new things,” Bain says. “Maybe they’ll find these things in Maine. We really need to attract people who really love this state.”
Not stemming the tide only further contributes to Maine’s declining economy, she says.