GRAND RAPIDS, MI — The offer was too good for Brandon Seager to pass up.

The Three Rivers native, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Western Michigan University in 2017, was working for a health care technology company in Grand Rapids last summer when a recruiter contacted him online.

A website, AHRN.com, that focuses on finding housing for military members needed software engineers. Was he interested in interviewing for an opening with the website’s parent company in Nashville, Tennessee?

The offer caught Seager’s attention. Not only did the job require the kind of computer coding he specialized in, it also offered a compensation package that was too sweet to pass up: a 30 percent pay bump, a $10,000 signing bonus, $10,000 for moving expenses and a temporary apartment free of charge.

“I just couldn’t say no,” said Seager, 25, who along with his wife, Taylor, now lives in Bellevue, a suburb west of Nashville. “It put me in a completely different financial situation than I had been in.”

Seager isn’t alone.

College graduates are a mobile group, and thousands of them leave the state each year. The promise of a new job, a bigger paycheck, the chance to experience life in a new place --- all are factors that drive some graduates to seek out opportunities elsewhere.

But while Michigan loses more college graduates than it gains, what was once described as a “brain drain” has slowed considerably in recent years, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show.

Between 2008 and 2012, Michigan had an annual average net loss of 17,208 people age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher, a period during which Michigan’s economy tanked and the unemployment rate skyrocketed.

It was the second highest net migration rate loss in the nation, behind Alaska.

Today, the picture looks starkly different.

The state had an annual average net loss of 6,412 college graduates between 2013 and 2017, the latest period for which data is available. Among the 32 states that lost more college graduates than they gained, Michigan had the ninth lowest net migration rate loss.

“The fact that the numbers are getting better is really good news,” said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., a nonpartisan think tank. “The fact that they’re negative is not good news. At some point, for the Michigan economy to work long term, they’ve got to be positive. You cannot lose talent and have a strong economy.”

Because the census data examined by MLive.com encompasses all people with college degrees age 25 and older, it includes retirees who are no longer in the workforce.

A 2017 survey conducted by Michigan State University provides a look at younger graduates. It found that over 36 percent of the 6,663 recent graduates from the state’s public universities have left the state. That number is “similar to but even slightly higher than was found in 2013,” the study says.

Losses were especially strong among engineering graduates, students who earned doctorates, and people who went on to work in education or technical fields, the study found.

Whether the trend continues will "depend on whether graduates see good career opportunities in their field and an exciting, attractive lifestyle when they consider their possible future in Michigan,” the study said.

Skills gap

The numbers are one thread in the ongoing discussion over the availability of educated, skilled workers in Michigan.

Having lots of college graduates is seen as one of the key ingredients for attracting new, high-paying jobs to a region. Meanwhile, business groups say attracting and retaining workers is one of the biggest challenges facing their members. Losing college graduates doesn’t help, officials say, especially in a competitive labor market with near-record low unemployment.

“Because of the demand for educated talent and the importance talent plays in economic growth, there’s a more and more concerted effort to try and target that young talent and get them to stay at home,” said Greg Handel, vice president of education and talent at the Detroit Regional Chamber.

It’s also crucial that Michigan attracts college graduates from other states, said Doug Ross, a senior adviser to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who focuses on economic and workforce development.

“While keeping our own is essential, if we’re going to be able to support and generate new industries here, we’re going to have to also be able to attract young college graduates,” he said. “We still do not have enough of the places they value to be serious competitors with the East or West coasts yet.”

Census data show the magnitude of the challenge.

Between 2013 and 2017, Michigan had an average annual in-migration rate of 2 percent among people 25 and older with bachelor’s degrees or higher. That was the second lowest rate in the United States.

“Kids in Texas and New York leave their state with a frequency that’s not much different from Michigan’s,” said Charles Ballard, an economist at Michigan State University. “Our problem is in-migration. The ones who do leave, they’re less likely to come to Michigan.”

States such as Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, Washington and Arizona had among the highest in-migration rates.

Changing the equation likely won’t be easy.

It means creating more vibrant cities, experts say, with the kinds of amenities young professionals prize, such as lively arts and cultural institutions, good public transportation, and an abundance of nightlife and entertainment options.

It also means doing a better job at sharing Michigan’s story.

To that end, the state of Michigan and regional groups have launched marketing campaigns spotlighting job openings, growth in the engineering and technology sector, and amenities like the Great Lakes and breweries in Grand Rapids.

“I just don’t think people understand the opportunity that’s in Michigan,” said Sammie Lukaskiewicz, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Talent and Economic Development. Her department last fall launched Choose Michigan, a $2.5 million marketing campaign targeting college students and young professionals throughout the state as well as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Madison, Wisconsin.

The campaign emphasizes opportunities in high-demand fields, such as science, technology, engineering and math. Lukaskiewicz said that while engineers are in high-demand, Michigan is actually gaining more than it’s losing.

It’s too early to judge whether the campaign has been successful, she said. The ultimate test is whether Michigan can reduce the 36 percent of recent public college and university graduates who are leaving the state.

“Success to me is people looking at Michigan as a state where they can flourish and they can thrive,” Lukaskiewicz said.

The Detroit Regional Chamber has launched a similar campaign.

Letsdetroit.com, also launched last fall, aims to attract and retain recent college graduates by connecting them with other young professionals and spotlighting neighborhoods and networking opportunities. It includes a feature called “Text a Detroiter,” which enables users to text an “ambassador to get information and recommendations about the things you care about.”

Judging the impact of the site is difficult, because “we haven’t made a huge marketing push yet,” Handel said.

“We’re still kind of tweaking the website and getting feedback on it,” he said. “But it’s picking up traction.”

When it comes to ensuring employers have workers needed to fill in-demand jobs, attracting and retaining college graduates is part of the answer. So too is increasing educational attainment for the whole state, Ross said.

He said the governor wants to increase the percentage of working adults with a postsecondary credential from 44 percent to 60 percent by 2030, and that she hopes to reach that goal, in part, through her recently proposed tuition-free community college plan.

“We have to get more educated, which we can do if we really focus on it,” Ross said.

Joe McCarthy. Courtesy photo

A way of life

Joe McCarthy was a year out of college when he packed his bags and moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2014.

The Trenton native, who earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast and cinematic arts from Central Michigan University, was employed at an audiovisual company in Plymouth at the time but wanted to follow his dream of working in the music industry.

So he took a chance.

He quit his job and enrolled at The Blackbird Academy, a Nashville-based sound engineering school that trains students to work in the recording and live music industry.

“I wasn’t entirely thrilled with where I ended up going when I graduated,” said McCarthy, 27, who now works as a production manager for country music artist Chris Janson. “A year in, I thought I would be a little further than I was. Just from the feel of Nashville and what people were telling me, I assumed it was the place to go to make that happen.”

Such stories aren’t uncommon. For some college graduates who leave the state, a sense of place can be as big a draw as job opportunities.

The MSU survey of recent college graduates found that respondents who rated factors related to job opportunities, mass transit, recreational opportunities and openness to diversity were more likely to leave the state. Some of the most popular spots survey respondents left for: Chicago, Washington D.C., New York and Seattle.

“Quality of place matters along with a job,” said Glazer, the president of Michigan Future Inc. “It’s a combination of both.”

Helping Michigan’s cities become more vibrant is an important part of attracting and retaining college graduates, but it’s not something the state can do on its own, Ross said.

“It’s a quality of life challenge, which is a good one for us, but not an easy one to turn around overnight,” Ross said. He said the state could play a role in those efforts but added that a larger-scale approach involving a collation of regional and local groups would be needed to help cities develop in such a manner.

“It doesn’t happen as the state,” he said. “It happens in communities around the state that are able to nurture the kind of industries that require highly educated people.”

Looking to return

Meanwhile, some graduates who have left the state say they would one day like to come home.

Ken Domingue was hired as an aerospace engineer at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, after he earned his master’s degree from Western Michigan University in 2017.

Domingue, who grew up southwest of Detroit in Carleton, says he would have loved to have stayed in Michigan, but most employers in his area of expertise are based in the Southwest.

So, when a job opened up at the research institute, he jumped on it.

“We like life in Texas, but it’s not Michigan,” said Domingue, 26, who lives in San Antonio with his wife, Virginia. Being far away from his family is one of the drawbacks, he said.

“If I heard tomorrow that Space X is building a place in Michigan, I would be pretty interested,” he said. “It wouldn’t take too much.”