Editor’s note: This Mississippi Today Ideas essay is published as part of our Brain Drain project, which seeks answers to Mississippi’s brain drain problem. To read more about the project, click here.
As homeowners know, a slow water leak is capable of causing more damage than a fast one. A burst pipe demands an immediate fix, but a leaky pipe can drip indefinitely. Perhaps water seeps out undetected, or repairs get put off in favor of more urgent tasks.
The cost of delay, measured in days or weeks, is minimal, but over years, it can be catastrophic. First it shows up in the form of higher water bills. Give it long enough, though, it can undermine the structural integrity of the house.
Mississippi has been slowly leaking population for a long time. Over the past decade, the state has lost an average of 5,000 residents per year. The primary cause is outmigration to other states, particularly among recent college graduates – a problem known as brain drain. But rising mortality rates and declining birth rates have also taken a toll on the state’s ability to replenish its population, especially since the pandemic.
In any given year, the losses amount to a small fraction of Mississippi’s nearly three million residents. Spread throughout the state, the changes can be difficult to notice in everyday life. Over time, however, the trickle has caused a flood.
Since 2010, 80,000 more people have moved out of Mississippi than have moved in. Put together, they would make up the second-largest city in the state. If such a city existed, it would be one of the best-educated places in the country: four-year college graduates account for all of the net outmigration among people ages 22 to 50.
As a state, we need to take a close look at the causes and consequences of our population decline. We must focus particular attention on the brain drain of four-year college graduates, which represents the single greatest challenge for the state’s future. It shapes the lives and livelihoods of every Mississippian, no matter whether they went to college or not.
The brain drain levies a hidden tax on people who remain in Mississippi by choice or necessity. The departure of college graduates reduces average income and job openings for all workers, regardless of their level of education. A smaller population – one deprived of many of its top earners – means all residents must pay higher taxes and utility rates to maintain infrastructure and public services. And a significant portion of every dollar invested in public education, the state’s largest budgetary expense, is converted into a subsidy to the states where Mississippi’s graduates end up working.
The brain drain has begun to erode the foundation of the state’s economy and communities, setting off a cascade of challenges that drives even more people to leave.
Existing businesses struggle to retain talented employees who can earn more money elsewhere, and new businesses choose not to invest when the pool of skilled workers is shrinking. Vacant houses and storefronts blight once-vibrant neighborhoods and downtowns, eating away at property values and family savings. Schools and churches that served as community pillars for generations close or consolidate. This is not the case in every part of the state, but it is a story familiar to many Mississippians.
That’s why Working Together Mississippi, a nonprofit organization comprising hundreds of community-based institutions across the state, is relaunching Rethink Mississippi as an initiative to find solutions to the state’s brain drain and population decline.
I started Rethink Mississippi a decade ago as a website featuring policy analysis and commentary written by young Mississippians for young Mississippians. Two things quickly became obvious: first, Mississippians of all backgrounds share a love for their state that is rare in an era of rootlessness and polarization; and second, the question that dominated all others was whether Mississippi could offer young people enough opportunity to keep them in the state. For too many, the answer has been no.
I believe that the solutions to the brain drain can be found in the enduring attachment that binds Mississippians to their home state. Even if they have moved far away, Mississippi is never far from their minds or their mouths. Therefore, the best way to find out how to keep people in Mississippi – or how to bring them back – is to ask them.
Through a partnership with Mississippi Today and the Center for Population Studies at the University of Mississippi, we have developed a survey to do just that. We invite you to spend a few minutes taking it. Your insight is valuable, no matter where you are from or where you live now.
A leak will not fix itself. We must stop it at the source. The work might be difficult, but it is necessary. We are too invested in our home to let it wash away.
Jake McGraw leads the Rethink Mississippi initiative at Working Together Mississippi, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization of nonprofits and religious institutions across the state. He began researching and writing about the brain drain when he moved back to Mississippi more than a decade ago. A native of Oxford, he studied public policy and economics at the University of Mississippi and economic history at Oxford University. You can reach him at j.mcgraw@workingtogetherms.org.
