Michimmigration

Last Monday another engineer joined our group at work. He is a native of Kalamazoo, MI, and attended the University of Michigan. The flight of college graduates from that state is startling. Of my closest friends at Michigan Tech (the engineering school in the state), not one remained in Michigan after graduation. Vermont, D.C., Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas, and other places all offered better employment opportunities than our home state. I can understand that Michigan, with the industrial and educational infrastructure to historically need and produce engineers, would be creating a glut of technical types who don't find the job they're prepared for near home.

Unfortunately, it goes beyond that. Even some of the education majors that I knew who attended other colleges had to join the exodus. One of my cousins just headed to Indiana to work as a technician at a hospital. Set aside the dorks, if you are no longer hiring teachers and medical types your society is hurting. Michigan is now manning the caboose of the nation's economy.