High Potential Self-Employed Follow Opportunity
Dec 14th, 2009 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: ResearchStates with growing economies present better opportunities for high-achieving college graduates, whether they wind up in wage and salary employment or self-employed, according to a working paper released by the SBA Office of Advocacy last week. The paper, entitled Educational Attainment, “Brain Drain,” and Self-employment: Examining the Interstate Mobility of Baccalaureate Graduates, 1993-2003, uses the U.S. Department of Education’s 2003 Baccalaureate and Beyond data base to study the employment and location of self-employed and wage-and-salary workers 10 years after graduation.
College majors are less important in predicting mobility than students’ grades; the best and the brightest also tend to be the most mobile. As for where these talented, highly mobile college graduates are going, the data indicates a strong correlation between mobility and economic growth — that is, these graduates are heading for states with strong economic growth. On the flip side, college graduates who are married with children and are homeowners ten years after graduating are less likely to be mobile than their unencumbered counterparts. However, also interestingly, marriage and children are not significant factors in determining mobility for the self-employed. For state officials seeking ways either keep talented students from leaving or entice them to move in, working to build a thriving, growing economy that is friendly to innovative, entrepreneurial companies is clearly a good place to start.
