Connecticut is Lucky Retaining Its Young Educated Populace

With the Con­necti­cut guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion fast approach­ing, a major top­ic dis­cussed is whether the state is  doing a good job retain­ing a young edu­cat­ed pop­u­lace. Despite the can­di­dates dif­fer­ences, accord­ing to the CT Mir­ror, both Gov­er­nor Dan­nel Mal­loy and Tom Foley believe that Con­necti­cut’s future econ­o­my and suc­cess depends on those young edu­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als to stay in the state.

How­ev­er, Alec Sum­mer­field, a senior polit­i­cal sci­ence and urban stud­ies dou­ble major at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, strong­ly believes he will not stay in the Nut­meg State past May when he grad­u­ates. As a Bal­ti­more native, Sum­mer­field said he does not have a strong tie with Con­necti­cut and wants to pur­sue his work back home. Because of that strong tie back in Mary­land, Sum­mer­field wants to con­tin­ue the rest of his edu­ca­tion and law school there.

So Why Spend All That Time and Money Here?

Why not stay? 

 

Although Sum­mer­field has made con­nec­tions and spent plen­ty of time and mon­ey in Con­necti­cut, he said it is time to move on. He said he came to UConn because his father went here and felt that sense of fam­i­ly pride to con­tin­ue on the lega­cy, how­ev­er Sum­mer­field said he knew he would end up back home to make a dif­fer­ence there.

Connecticut Can Support Some Not All

Do you think Con­necti­cut’s econ­o­my could sup­port you? 

 

Accord­ing to The Tax Foun­da­tion, alco­hol, gas and income tax­es in Con­necti­cut dri­ve up the cost of liv­ing. With this in mind, peo­ple who are either plan­ning on retir­ing or plan­ning to grad­u­ate find it dif­fi­cult to stay in the state. Although Con­necti­cut can sup­port some post grad indi­vid­u­als, it may not be as appeal­ing of a place to live for stu­dents with debt and loans to pay off.

Connecticut Is Getting Lucky

Do you think Con­necti­cut is doing a good job retain­ing its young edu­cat­ed populace? 

 

Gallup, the Amer­i­can research-based, glob­al per­for­mance-man­age­ment con­sult­ing com­pa­ny, polled Amer­i­cans and asked whether they would move out of their state. Accord­ing to this poll, 49 per­cent of Con­necti­cut res­i­dents would leave if they could. Almost half of the state would like to move else­where. That is huge. How­ev­er despite this desire to leave, only 16 per­cent said they would be leav­ing Con­necti­cut with­in the next year. 

As Sum­mer­field said, Con­necti­cut it is a com­fort zone for most. Though he said most young stu­dents who go to UConn lived in Con­necti­cut all their life and even­tu­al­ly want to leave the state, they sim­ply don’t leave or cre­ate a life for them­selves else­where. Despite their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the state, they stay with­in their com­fort zone. With the increas­ing urge to leave the state along with high tax rates, Con­necti­cut may be in trouble.