Are we educating our young people to leave Michigan? The question has troubled education donors and Community Foundation executives in Michigan’s Thumb. The idea of reverse scholarships arose from discussions among regional organizations, including the Huron County Community Foundation and
Community Foundation of St. Clair County.
In traditional college scholarships, "you basically pay them to move away," says CFSCC president/CEO Randy Maiers.
Michigan’s brain drain has been a slow leak for decades. A cartoon in the 1980s showed the receding taillights of a car exiting Michigan, with a sign directing the last person leaving to turn out the lights. According to
Crain’s Detroit Business, although the population grew slightly in 2015 from foreign immigration and greater births than deaths, migrations to other states have outnumbered inflows for decades. The state has lost at least one Congressional seat every 10 years since 1970 and is projected to lose another by 2020 – a devastating loss of political influence.
The exodus of young people with college degrees is especially alarming.
Crain’s reported U.S. Census figures estimating a 0.7 percent net loss among 22- to 34-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees or higher in the year ended July 2015.
The Port Huron-based Community Foundation of St. Clair County is resolved to bring back its young people. So far, student loan payback grants of as much as $10,000 have lured the first three former residents back home to the Blue Water area. The deal is, they have to come back to live and work in St. Clair County in order to get the grant. And it is given when they graduate.
Might we see this trend spread across the state? It’s likely, according to Maiers, because local community foundations tend to talk to each other.
Typical donors are individuals, mature in years, educated and successful, and raised in the local area, who want to give back to the communities they grew up in. The three millennials who accepted the first round of reverse scholarships also express a desire to give back. Being close to family is high on their list of priorities as well. Two are marrying soon and are buying or have bought homes.
New veterinarian in Fort Gratiot
Discovering the gender of the kittens on her parents’ farm in Jeddo was an early specialty for veterinarian Muray Darling.
"It was every little girl’s dream of being a veterinarian," she says. "I just never grew out of it."
She wanted to return home after college, but the average student loan burden for a veterinarian is $200,000, and practices in small cities pay proportionally lower. Now, thanks to the reverse scholarship program, which disburses funds to pay back student loans, she could afford to leave North Carolina to take a job at the North River Animal Hospital in Fort Gratiot.
For now, Darling is busy adapting to her new job and looking forward to her wedding in September to her fiancé from nearby Emmett. When she's more settled, she plans to give back to the community, probably by volunteering in youth sports programs.
After living in some larger cities, Darling enjoys the straight-ahead honesty of St. Clair County residents and the close connections that the clients of the animal clinic have to others whom she knows, including her own family. "It’s a big trust that we all have with each other," she says.
Two friends of Darling’s have returned from careers elsewhere to live in the lofts that are transforming downtown Port Huron into a round-the-clock neighborhood.
Ah, those lofts. Even the state of Michigan has gotten involved in creating the kind of "coolness" that draws young professionals to communities from Colorado to Boston to the West Coast. Since the "Cool Cities" initiative in 2003, projects funded by state grants, loans and encouragement for private lenders have built fine arts offerings, pedestrian-friendly streets and warehouse-conversion housing. Perhaps it’s optimistic to think that hipness alone will draw the "kids" back to Michigan, but Rust Belt chic is one step toward enhancing some cities’ appeal to companies and remote high-tech workers looking for low cost but high quality of life.
New hire at McLaren Hospital
Port Huron’s waterfront is the backdrop for medical laboratory scientist Chelsea Beeler’s memories of sailing and Mackinac race "Boat Week." She looks to improvements like the Desmond Landing River Walk and riverside restaurants as ways to lure more of her generation.
When asked what would make "PoHo" an even more vibrant scene for young professionals, unique, mom-and-pop restaurants always top their list. Downtown is slowly filling up with these establishments, as well as the nightlife that has always been the main business of Quay Street.
Microbreweries are favorites, but also – surprisingly – alternatives to drinking. Millennials, it seems, are returning to traditional values while still looking for fun.
Beeler plans to give back by volunteering for the Blue Water Young Professionals or the Community Foundation. She works at McLaren Hospital and recently moved into one of Port Huron’s city neighborhoods, where she bought a home, and by the time you read this, she’ll already be married.
Has the reverse scholarship helped her move ahead with those plans?
"It has helped immensely. I was able to buy a house and not have that student loan over my head anymore," she says. "You feel like you’re wanted back in the city when they do something like that."
Better speech therapy available in St. Clair County
Speech pathologist Erin Lamb also admits that the pending receipt of scholarship funds "has definitely sped up the process" of planning a wedding for 2017 and moving back from her fiancé’s native Sanilac County. And that’s part of the deal: The funds are disbursed when recipients move back and take jobs here.
The scholarship has also boosted her plans for continuing education in her field. It’s her way of giving back, providing access to better speech-therapy services for children without forcing parents to drive large distances.
For more personal reasons as well, Lamb looks forward to moving back: "I want to give my children the same upbringing I had."
Like Darling, Lamb grew up in Jeddo. In fact, they may have played at the same basketball games, when Cros-Lex went against Yale high schools.
The Foundation takes applications for the program year-round and still has funds for one more recipient before the end of the year, according to Maiers. For a generation overburdened with student debt, reverse scholarships may not be the complete answer, but they are showing one county’s commitment to reversing the brain drain.
For more information about the Community Foundation of St. Clair County's Reverse Scholarship Fund, visit http://www.stclairfoundation.org/funds/more/reverse_scholarship_fund.
A fourth-generation Port Huron native, Elizabeth Ely recently moved back from New York City to spend more time on her worldwide podcast, How Positive Are You, focused on alternative views of HIV and AIDS, with side topics on vaccines and cancer.