An article fromDive Brief Most 4-year graduates work in same state as their alma mater, report finds

States looking to grow their college-educated workforce should focus on “homegrown talent” over wooing outside workers, according to the analysis.

Published Aug. 11, 2026Laura Spitalniak Editor

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Getty ImagesListen to the article 4 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief:

• Over half of workers with a four-year degree or higher, 55%, work in the same state they grew up in and earned their diploma, according to a report published Thursday by the Strada Education Foundation. Only 9% moved to another state for college and never left.
• Overall, states that keep their college graduates tend to have “robust employment growth,” lower income tax rates, and jobs that pay a higher wage premium for those with postsecondary education, the report said.
• Strada advised state and local governments to invest in public higher education to meet workforce needs. “Despite interest in attracting talent from other states, most states face long odds of doing so as homegrown talent is the primary source of college-educated workers in most states,” the report said.

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State workforces can vary dramatically from one another. In Michigan, 78% of the college-educated workforce either grew up there and attended college locally or moved to the state for college. That's true for just 48% of Colorado's workers with bachelor’s or graduate degrees.

“Developing, attracting, and retaining a skilled workforce is a perennial challenge for state, regional, and local policymakers, and an aging population will make this challenge even more urgent in the years ahead,” the report said.

Among college graduates who recently elected to move states, 51% cited economic opportunity as their primary motivator, making it the most commonly cited reason.

The type of college a student attended also correlated with whether they stayed in state postgraduation.

Public colleges, for instance, serve as “anchors for in-state talent,” the report found. About two-thirds of graduates who attended public institutions with “broad-access admissions” stayed in state for college and continued to work there after graduation. The same is true for just half of graduates from the most selective public colleges.

In contrast, just two-fifths of students who graduated from private nonprofits attended college in state and stayed there after getting their diploma, the report said.

Some public institutions are still seeking to woo out-of-state students by expanding eligibility for in-state tuition.

Coppin State University, a public historically Black institution in Maryland, in 2023 began offering in-state tuition rates to applicants from any of the over 30 states that don’t have an HBCU.

In an interview last month with The Baltimore Banner, Coppin State President Anthony Jenkins cited the program as a driving force behind the university’s marked enrollment turnaround. It enrolled 2,790 students in fall 2025, up 26.2% from 2,210 the previous year, according to data from the University System of Maryland. And almost 80% of Coppin State’s graduates stay in Maryland, Jenkins said.

Kean University, a public institution which recently completed its acquisition of New Jersey City University, will charge all students an in-state tuition rate beginning this fall. And the University of Alaska System board last week eliminated its out-of-state tuition rate starting in fall 2027. One system campus, the University of Alaska Southeast, has offered in-state tuition to all undergraduates since last fall.

UA System President Matt Cooper, who estimated that 75% of its graduates stay in Alaska to work, said the cheaper cost of attendance could draw more students and benefit the state long-term, the Alaska Beacon reported.

The report, a collaboration between the Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, primarily based its analysis on education polling conducted by Gallup and Strada between June 2016 and April 2019. Researchers focusing on responses from over 44,000 working-age adults who hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Their sample did not include postsecondary education such as associate degrees or postsecondary certificates, the report said. It also added that the polling data was collected before the coronavirus pandemic.

However, “despite much news coverage, COVID-induced changes in migration rates and the reasons for interstate migration are modest relative to preexisting patterns,” the report said

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