Rising Tuition Increases Iowa's Brain Drain

Kyle at Diary of a Political Madman posted about rising tuition costs at Iowa's state universities. Kyle nailed it when he wrote...

U of I students will be forced to work more and take bigger loans to cover tuition increases. In a related but somehow unreported story, upon graduation those same students will likely leave the state for better paying jobs in bigger cities to help pay off their loans.

Rising college tuition has been an ongoing focus of this blog. Back in September, I wrote this...

It takes more than just getting young people in college for them to stay in Iowa. Yepsen's article shows that they are going to college. However, young people decide if they want to stay in Iowa when they graduate from college and today our young people are finding themselves graduating with a ton of debt from student loans from tuition nearly doubling since 2000.

Let's say a young Iowan graduates with a degree in education and has $50,000 of debt from student loans. Will that person decide to get a job in Iowa and make $30,000 a year or will they go to Texas and make over $40,000. How about a nurse who graduates with $50,000 of student loan debt. They can choose to stay in Iowa and make $30,000 a year or go to Minneapolis or Kansas City and make $45,000. A pharmacy graduate with student loan debt can stay in Iowa and make $90,000 or head elsewhere and earn well over $100,000.

These people may like Iowa, but that extra money sure would help pay off the amount of student loan debt they have accumalated. What choice would you make?

**Update**
In a related story, Democrats plan on cutting interest rates on college loans.