Retaining Recent College Graduates in Boston: Is There a Brain Drain? | Hacker News Reader

Retaining Recent College Graduates in Boston: Is There a Brain Drain?

bostonredevelopmentauthority.org

26 pointswallflower19 comments

The city itself is home to 35 colleges and universities enrolling about 152,000 students.

The Redevelopment Authority is complaining that, after graduating, 4 out of 5 students leave. After 20 pages, they conclude that's what's supposed to happen.

The thought experiment about 2/3 of the way thru is very amusing, in a city of basically constant size over previous decades, if a significant fraction of the grads actually stayed, the population doubling rate would be just a couple decades.

Another humorous way to look at it is a "large" fraction of the 150K grads are imports from across the country and around the world, so if the imports don't leave the city will obviously eventually fill up. Its a conservation of mass argument.

The report carefully avoided discussing why there are no new jobs on a net basis in Boston. The government there is just a tad oppressive, the rebels of 1776 have turned into the redcoats of 2014 and all that.

>The report carefully avoided discussing why there are no new jobs on a net basis in Boston. The government there is just a tad oppressive, the rebels of 1776 have turned into the redcoats of 2014 and all that.

Blaming the MA state government requires rather a lot of justification, considering the taxation levels are on par with California and MA doesn't (yet) even make noncompete agreements unenforceable.

On a side note, while the visualization at the start of the paper is quite nifty, does the rotation make it annoying to read for anyone else, or is that just me?

Also, from a visualization standpoint, it's an interesting and original figure, it's rather hard to interpret. I'd argue that two or three separate conventional figures showing the same thing would make the point more clearly in about the same amount of space.

That having been said, it's a unique and compact way to display the data. I'm just not sure it's an effective communication tool. (Of course, I'd be rather proud of it if I'd made it...)

This is a PDF! Please note that in the title. Some of us don't want to download PDFs to our mobile devices.

Of course there's a bloody brain drain. There's no affordable housing, and median salaries for most graduates are nowhere near commensurate with the cost of living in the Boston metro area. What do they expect, that already-indebted graduates should further impoverish ourselves for the privilege of living in a cold, dark, snobby city with a severe inferiority complex?

Starting Median pay in Boston: $50,500 - http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efkk45mhij/no-10-best-paying-...

Starting Median pay in San Fran: $57,200 - http://www.forbes.com/pictures/efkk45mhij/no-2-best-paying-c...

Average Rent in Boston (1 BR): ~$2000 - http://boston.jumpshell.com/how-to/where-to-live-in-boston/a...

Average Rent in San Fran (1 BR): $2873 - http://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent...

Rent / Salary in Boston: 0.0396

Rent / Salary in San Fran: 0.0502

"There's no affordable housing, and median salaries for most graduates are nowhere near commensurate with the cost of living in the Boston metro area." Certainly no worse than San Fran, at least. As to the rest of the comment, how has Boston hurt you?

As much as I love Boston, SF is not the only other city in the world, and both cities are extremely atypical. The graduates are likely leaving for a place where they can get a $49,500 salary and a $700 apartment.

EDIT: and your percentages are wrong: try 48% of gross for BOS and 60% of gross for SF. Figure 40% for taxes and you have either very little for food, insurance, medical care, transportation, clothing, entertainment or you're already negative. Oh, and I forgot: STUDENT LOANS.

They're not yearly salary to yearly rent - it's yearly salary to monthly rent. It's just to make a comparison - if you want percent of gross for rent you can multiply by 12.

You can also consider that it's comparing median starting income to average 1 BR rent. One wouldn't expect just starting out that you would have an average single bedroom.

The actual ratio of rent to income really does matter. If we were comparing two cities where the ratio was 18% and 22%, then people would "want to spend less" or "pay a little more and enjoy better entertainment, culture, weather, sports franchises, etc."

But if a college graduate has to spend 95% or 105% of their after-tax income just on rent there is ZERO left for student loans and insurance, the conclusion is that both cities are completely unfeasible except for graduates with very wealthy and generous parents.

Your sole point is that "SF is more unaffordable than Boston". So what: living on a moon base would cost even more than SF.

> one would not expect that just starting out that you would have an average single bedroom

I have had a lot of roommates a lot, but I don't even see how that's workable in SF for the vast majority of graduates. And we are talking about college graduates: these are people whose employers expect them to arrive clean and rested, which is difficult to do when sleeping under a bridge, and who didn't grow up expecting to have to wait until they have 10 years of experience and 3 children to finally afford a 1-bedroom apartment.

Of course, I'm just making the point that Boston is at least on par with San Fran. Median and averages are useless for cost of living because you can't get an average rent for recent college grads. All you've demonstrated is that if a fresh out of college grad tried to live an average lifestyle in Boston they wouldn't have enough money. Well, duh. They have another decade to go before they reach average income.

All we can do is make apples to apples comparisons. You're trying to stretch the data to say something it doesn't. For example, as soon as you start looking at 2 or 3 bedrooms split between roommates both cities become more reasonable.

EDIT: I don't think having 2 roommates in a 3 bedroom apartment is quite comparable to sleeping under a bridge. I don't understand why you're being so hyperbolic.

>"There's no affordable housing, and median salaries for most graduates are nowhere near commensurate with the cost of living in the Boston metro area." Certainly no worse than San Fran, at least.

So, certainly no worse than the single least affordable city in the entire country.

>As to the rest of the comment, how has Boston hurt you?

Honestly, I just kinda hate cold climate zones, especially when they're snobby while also offering low quality of life. But mostly I just really hate cold climates.

While I don't mind the cold too much, for me the darkness in the winter is really frustrating. It seems like such a small thing, but when it gets dark at 4:15 it really takes away my motivation to go outside.

lol, reading this at 5:28p on East Coast. It just got dark, and my body and I can't tell if it's 11pm or 8:30pm or 6:30pm. I'm not sure how to pace my evening. The natural timing that evening's slow light fade provides is truly a gift.

oh well, only 36 days until the shortest day of the year!

"Snobby"? Do you think you might be biased?

Biased? No: experienced. I actually found Silicon Valley itself to be friendlier and more open, with fewer nasty status issues, than Boston.

Did you read the paper at all? You're argument doesn't really address anything they say. They cite research saying that the most important thing in retaining graduates is availability of jobs, not housing, city lifestyle, etc... And that since Boston produces so many graduates, it's unrealistic to think they're all going to stay, simply because there aren't jobs for all of them.

You're arguing a point that the paper isn't making.

EDIT: Spelling

I think there is a bigger problem in Boston than the cost of living. For people with tech degrees, there isn't enough of a startup engine to create enough opportunities (jobs, risky money, talent).

1) Boston seems to be risk averse when it comes to investing -- its just the mind-set.

2) Boston is really SaaS focused (safe) -- most young people want to work in a consumer space.

3) There isn't enough executive talent and for that matter VP level talent. You can see the evidence in the lack of IPOs. How good number of Boston companies seem to fall out of sky at the same stage (I can name some names but I won’t).

4) Facebook and Dropbox should of been Boston companies.

PS: I still love Boston and I am really happy to be part of the tech scene with such a bright future.

Yeah, Boston has something funky going on. It's hard to pin it down exactly. It's cultural. Seems like it's changing, but slowly.

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