{"id":995280,"date":"2026-08-12T03:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/995280\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T03:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:07:22","slug":"wisconsin-has-second-largest-brain-drain-in-the-country-despite-high-education-attainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/995280\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin has second-largest \u2018brain drain\u2019 in the country despite high education attainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

More college-educated workers move out of Wisconsin each year than move in, leading to what economists call \u201cbrain drain<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new report<\/a> from the Wisconsin Policy Forum finds that Wisconsin has the second biggest net loss of young, educated workers in the country, surpassed only by North Dakota. And this can have major ripple effects on the state\u2019s overall economic growth.<\/p>\n

To determine the rate of brain drain, the researchers used U.S. Census data from 2024 to compare workers in their 30s who were either born in Wisconsin or moved to the state from elsewhere. They found that about 60 percent of people born in Wisconsin who live in another state have a bachelor\u2019s degree or higher, compared to 45 percent of people who moved to Wisconsin from out of state.<\/p>\n

Understanding Wisconsin, Together.<\/p>\n

WPR\u2019s \u201cWisconsin Today\u201d newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty big gap,\u201d said Joe Peterangelo, research director at the Wisconsin Policy Forum and one of the report\u2019s co-authors.<\/p>\n

That gap matters for Wisconsin\u2019s workforce because jobs in growth industries increasingly require a college education. \u201cThat\u2019s the direction the economy has been heading,\u201d Peterangelo told WPR\u2019s \u201cWisconsin Today<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur previous research found that a majority of job openings in Wisconsin that pay at least $50,000 per year and were expected to open up by 2030 are in occupations that typically require bachelor\u2019s or advanced degrees,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to have the workers to fill those roles as they come available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Business groups in Wisconsin are concerned about the downstream effects of losing so many educated workers to other states. Dale Kooyenga, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/a> that his organization thinks about brain drain \u201con a weekly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other states trying to curb their own \u201cbrain drain\u201d have rolled out policies aimed at retaining educated workers. For example, Minnesota has a network of initiatives<\/a> to recruit people to move to rural areas of the state. And Ohio has launched a program offering discounted mortgage rates<\/a> to recent college graduates.<\/p>\n

While brain drain is a \u201clong-standing challenge\u201d for the state going back to at least 2009, Peterangelo said, the report identifies a silver lining in Wisconsin\u2019s above-average education levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe outperform the nation on college completion in general, so among people born in Wisconsin, they\u2019re more likely to earn a college degree \u2014 whether they stay in Wisconsin or move to another state \u2014 than the national average,\u201d Peterangelo said. \u201cThat helps because we start in a stronger position, and so even though we\u2019re losing some of those adults, we end up looking pretty average on educational attainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA customer crosses the street while leaving a shop along the main business district in Prairie du Chien, Wis., in Crawford County, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017. David Goldman\/AP Photo<\/p>\n

The impact of \u2018brain drain\u2019 on rural communities<\/p>\n

The effects of brain drain are especially pronounced in rural areas of the state, where it can be harder to fill critical jobs in fields like healthcare and pharmacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tessa Conroy, associate professor of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an economic development specialist with UW Extension, told \u201cWisconsin Today\u201d that rural communities \u201chave been worried about this for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a hard pill to swallow for rural communities and rural families to see some of their talented young people leave and never come back,\u201d Conroy said, \u201cespecially at a moment when rural communities are hurting for healthcare professionals, veterinarians, lawyers, teachers and filling local leadership positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than trying to bring in companies and jobs as they did in the past, rural communities are now thinking more about attracting people and families, Conroy said. One big way is to boost amenities like affordable housing, access to child care and strong internet connectivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus for a lot of rural communities is just creating that place that \u2018boomerang migrants<\/a>\u2019 \u2014 those young people that leave \u2014 that they want to come back to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While the Midwest on the whole is a big region for brain drain, the report finds, Wisconsin might be particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon because of its proximity to major job hubs like Chicago and the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look at the big cities in Wisconsin, they\u2019re just not in the same weight class as some of the big cities in our neighbors,\u201d Conroy said. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that Wisconsin is failing or not doing well. When we look at those quality of life metrics, when we look at livability, Wisconsin really has a lot to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More college-educated workers move out of Wisconsin each year than move in, leading to what economists call \u201cbrain…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":995281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,8734,50,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-995280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-higher-education","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117080337321617003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}