Brainy balance: Education drain, gain offset each other – but newcomers are older in Montana

You’ve heard it many times before: Montana is exporting its future – our native sons and daughters are moving away to greener pastures.

The refrain usually is accompanied by some dire predictions and a call to action. Log more trees, mine more metals, cut more taxes and make more jobs. If they have a reason to stay, or so the thinking goes, then we’ll no longer lose our children.

But while it’s true that many young Montanans leave after graduating high school, the fact is, that’s the case in every other state, too.

“It happens all over,” said George Masnick. “Young people wander more. Get over it. That’s just the way it is when you’re a young adult.”

Masnick is a retired demographer from Harvard University, now living in the Bitterroot Valley. And he’s a perfect example of the “brain gain” he says is more than offsetting the state’s “brain drain.”

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/05/21/business/biz01.txt