An ongoing question for Boston’s city administrators that has also become a topic for the 2009 mayoral elections is how to keep graduating college students in the city after their educational careers expire. Ironically, Boston is noted universally as one of the most prominent college towns in existence, yet it exhibits the unfortunate trend of those Boston-bred graduates moving elsewhere once they’ve gotten their degrees. While the reasons behind this trend are varied, the underlying theme linking all of those reasons together lies in what mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty’s campaign spokeswoman Natasha Perez calls a lack of modernization.
Truthfully, Boston has yet to shed its old-school Puritan roots, and that sad fact comes through all over the city. Whether it be the early closing times of public transportation, the ban of selling liquor past 11 p.m. or the legislation forbidding more than four college-aged students to share an apartment, Boston doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat to its thousands of resident students. And it is these students who spend four, six, even eight years in Boston, all the while stimulating its economy, supporting its local businesses, adding heft to its intellectual and cultural capital and influencing younger natives to stick around for college and do the same.
But when the time comes for that degree to start paying off, college students will end up going to whatever city in which it will pay off the most. If graduates spend their college careers being made out to be second-rate citizens in Boston, what would make them feel comfortable staying in the city to seek recruitment in an already very difficult job market? The bottom line is, students aren’t well-received in the city when they’re still students, so when it comes time to be employees, they assume they won’t be well received professionally either. It’s not an illogical conclusion to make.
What Boston may consider that would be even easier and far less of a commitment than some of the incentive programs instituted by other states to keep college graduates around might just be to make for a more inviting atmosphere for college students. Creating an emphasis on the value the city has for its college students would make the students feel more at home and more comfortable in trying their hand at getting post-grad jobs in such a cutthroat metropolitan stage. Frankly, students give a lot to Boston during their semesters as residents, and until Boston gives back something a little more substantial, those students will relocate as many times as necessary till they find a city that will.
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