Voting with their feet?

A couple days ago, I again griped that Illinois seems both unable and unwilling to fix its problems.

Just look at a sentence like that, with “Illinois” as the subject, the actor, as if those who live in Illinois are not in charge of their own fate.  And, true, this past year, the people of Illinois elected a reform-minded (at least in his commercials), stand-up-to-the-unions Republican governor, so that’s something, but our prior governor Pat Quinn claimed to be just as reform-minded but caved to the unions for their support, and found that the powerful lock on the legislature of the longtime Democratic leadership was not something that could be surmounted — especially given the gerrymandering in setting the legislative districts.  And, of course, our most recent Republican governor, George Ryan, is a clear demonstration that Democrats don’t have a lock on corruption.

Why don’t people “vote with their feet”?  Besides the ties that people always have to their communities — family, friends, job, schools — the sheer size of Chicago as the largest city in the Midwest keeps the regional economy strong, despite everything.  And our winter weather can’t compete with the Sun Belt, but, hey, we’ve got the Great Lakes, which, by the way, we are not going to sell to Arizona or California.  Besides which, Chicago is a magnet for immigrants, so as to balance out departures from the native-born.  But even so, according to a January Tribune report, recently this hasn’t been enough:

New census data and other figures reveal the cold hard truth: More people are moving away than coming, tipping Illinois last year into the dreadful category of states with declining populations. From July 2013 to July 2014, Illinois shrank by about 10,000 residents in all, joining other states in decline such as West Virginia, Connecticut and Alaska.

. . .

•Illinois suffered a net loss of 94,956 people in state-to-state migration last year, the highest rate in decades. That number is one part of an equation involving births, deaths and immigration from other countries that yields the overall population loss. But Illinois’ state-to-state migration loss is the biggest contributor to that overall population decline, Frey says. The last year Illinois had lost population was 1987-88.

•Three moving companies that look at migration patterns all note the high number of Illinois expats in new reports. Each company puts Illinois in the top three states for outbound shipments; Allied Van Lines ranks Illinois No. 1 with 1,372 net outbound moves. While these are limited figures reflecting the movement of entire households, demographers take them seriously as a snapshot of behavior by more affluent Americans.

And–

and this is where I really have to get out of my bad habit of meandering into the actual topic —

here’s some anecdotal evidence:

Growing up in Michigan, which has been beset by auto industry troubles for many years now, it was virtually unheard-of to attend college out-of-state.  Even the best-and-brightest attended the flagship University of Michigan, or, alternatively, Michigan State, if the draw was a particular program of study (the James Madison public policy program for me, engineering for a friend); it seems to me that only one of the honors kids went to an Ivy, not because we weren’t good enough, but because no one considered it necessary.  My other friends attended the lesser-name state schools — Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, etc.

(Now, to be sure, few of us still live in Michigan, but that’s another story.)

Last night I was at the high school band concert, and, in the program, they have pictures and profiles for all the students.  Here’s where they’re headed:

Amanda A.:  BYU Hawaii, teaching major

Cullen B.:  University of Iowa, computer science major

Devante C.:  local community college

Emma C.:  U of Michigan or U of Wisconsin, medical field

Jake F.:  college not stated

Zoe F.:  Truman State University in Missouri, pre-med

Eliana G.:  local community college

Rachel H:  Ball State University

Jennifer H.:  local community college + transfer, English

Zoey K.:  University of Wisconsin Platteville, forensic chemistry

Neil K.:  Indiana University, piano performance

Zachary K.:  Illinois Wesleyan Univeristy, pre-med

Tony R.:  Elmhurst College, music

Ella S.:  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, English

Ben S.:  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, computer engineering

Dino S.:  community college + transfer, computer science

Nora S.:  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, sound design

Daniele S.:  St. Catherine University, Minnesota, Occupational Therapy

Ryan S.:  University of Iowa, marketing

Jack S.:  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, engineering

Peter T.:  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, mechanical engineering

Evan T.:  local community college + transfer to University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, music education

Trevor T.:  Northern Illinois University, mechanical engineering

Joey U.:  University of Minnesota, “Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior” major (yeah, I don’t know what that is, either)

Nathan W.:  University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, computer science

So there you have it:

4 attending the community college,

4 attending private colleges (half in-, half out-of-state),

9 attending public colleges out of state (many in the Midwest, e.g., Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota),

5 attending the University of Illinois,

and one lonely hash mark in my “other public university in Illinois” column as I tallied this.

In total, 12 staying in-state, and 11 leaving the state, and, of those attending public 4-year schols, 6 in- and 9 out-of state.

Maybe it’s just this group of kids.  Or maybe it’s just how college works these days, that financial aid shenanigans means that out-of-state tuition isn’t a barrier any longer.  Perhaps it’s always been this way, and the majority of the kids at the lower-tier state schools come from less-well-off places.  Or — and I don’t really know — maybe it’s Ilinois’ system of state schools:  one school with a very strong reputation, with Springfield’s efforts focused there, and the remaining schools with a cr** reputation and academic environment?  But in any case, I was surprised at this.

Now, are these kids really voting with their feet with respect to Illinois’ current fiscal problems?  No, of course not.  But will they come back to Illinois after graduation?

And who, by the way, are the kids filling up the Illinois state universities?  According to the Chicago Tribune’s reporting, it’s not necessarily that they’re taking in more out-of-state kids, but that they’re heavily recruiting from abroad.