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There is good news and bad news for the people who think that Michigan’s path to prosperity is to attract and retain people with college degrees. The good news is that Michigan has the lowest outbound migration rate of adults with college degrees. Michigan retains its stock of people with degrees better than any other state. The bad news is that the Great Lakes State has the lowest inbound migration rate of adults with college degrees. That is, it’s the least attractive state for people who have earned college degrees. Taking these two measures together, we find Michigan in the middle of states.
According to the Census Bureau, 38,496 people over 25 with a bachelor’s degree or higher moved into Michigan in 2024, which represents 0.5% of the adult population. At the same time, 40,849 adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher moved out of the state, representing 0.6% of the adult population.
Both of these are the lowest rates in the country. California was next-closest with the lowest levels of in-migration and Mississippi was next-closest with the lowest out-migration.
There’s nothing special about college graduates, however. They’re just like everyone else. They move to and from the same kind of places noncollege graduates move. Family and opportunity are powerful draws regardless of your credentials. Michigan also has low levels of in- and out-migration for noncollege graduates, too. It’s at the sixth-lowest level of in-migration and the lowest level of out-migration for non-graduates.
The chart below has every state as a dot. Where the dot is placed depends on net migration of college graduates and noncollege graduates. The further right, the better a state was able to keep its population of college graduates and attract more from other states. The further up, the more a state was able to keep its population of noncollege graduates. Notice that the dots cluster around a trend leading up and to the right, indicating that unattractive states tend to lose both college graduates and others while attractive states tend to gain both college graduates and others.
What this shows is that there’s no education-level targeting that policymakers should attempt. Sometimes officials think otherwise. The state set up a council to study population growth in 2023 and concluded that the state needed to bend to the will of young college grads in order to succeed. But they didn’t bother explaining why or showing how this plan was the key to state population growth.
Growing the state’s population is a valid concern for lawmakers. Michigan has been stuck at around 10 million people since 2000 while the national population is up by 21%.
There are some practical lessons that lawmakers can learn about how to increase the state’s population, and these are the takeaways from The Mackinac Center’s literature review of the subject. And the author’s comments on it ought to resonate with Michigan leaders.
“If Michigan wants to grow its population, the state should aim to become a welcoming place for all types of entrepreneurs, job creators and workers,” said Hannah Kling. “As policymakers seek ways to attract people to Michigan, they should remember to weigh costs and benefits carefully while aiming for policies that have the broadest impact.”
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