IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15323.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Grads on the Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets for Graduates

Author

Listed:
  • Conzelmann, Johnathan G.

    (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

  • Hemelt, Steven W.

    (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

  • Hershbein, Brad J.

    (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research)

  • Martin, Shawn

    (University of Michigan)

  • Simon, Andrew

    (University of Chicago)

  • Stange, Kevin

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50 percent of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67 percent in-state. The geographic dispersion of alumni is more than twice as great for highly selective 4-year institutions as for 2-year institutions. However, more than one-quarter of 2-year institutions disperse alumni more diversely than the average public 4-year institution. In one application of these data, we find that the average strength of the labor market to which a college sends its graduates predicts college-specific intergenerational economic mobility. In a second application, we quantify the extent of "brain drain" across areas and illustrate the importance of considering migration patterns of college graduates when estimating the social return on public investment in higher education.

Suggested Citation

  • Conzelmann, Johnathan G. & Hemelt, Steven W. & Hershbein, Brad J. & Martin, Shawn & Simon, Andrew & Stange, Kevin, 2022. "Grads on the Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets for Graduates," IZA Discussion Papers 15323, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15323.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valero, Anna & Van Reenen, John, 2019. "The economic impact of universities: Evidence from across the globe," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 53-67.
    2. Raj Chetty & Matthew O. Jackson & Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel & Nathaniel Hendren & Robert B. Fluegge & Sara Gong & Federico Gonzalez & Armelle Grondin & Matthew Jacob & Drew Johnston & Martin, 2022. "Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility," Nature, Nature, vol. 608(7921), pages 108-121, August.
    3. William R. Johnson, 2006. "Are Public Subsidies to Higher Education Regressive?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 1(3), pages 288-315, June.
    4. John Bound & Michael F. Lovenheim & Sarah Turner, 2010. "Why Have College Completion Rates Declined? An Analysis of Changing Student Preparation and Collegiate Resources," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 129-157, July.
    5. Russell Weinstein, 2022. "Local Labor Markets and Human Capital Investments," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(5), pages 1498-1525.
    6. Raven Molloy & Christopher L. Smith & Abigail Wozniak, 2011. "Internal Migration in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 173-196, Summer.
    7. Raj Chetty & John N Friedman & Emmanuel Saez & Nicholas Turner & Danny Yagan, 2020. "Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1567-1633.
    8. Webber, Douglas A., 2017. "State divestment and tuition at public institutions," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-4.
    9. Juanna Schrøter Joensen & Helena Skyt Nielsen, 2009. "Is there a Causal Effect of High School Math on Labor Market Outcomes?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
    10. Bound, John & Turner, Sarah, 2007. "Cohort crowding: How resources affect collegiate attainment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 877-899, June.
    11. Raj Chetty & Matthew O. Jackson & Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel & Nathaniel Hendren & Robert B. Fluegge & Sara Gong & Federico Gonzalez & Armelle Grondin & Matthew Jacob & Drew Johnston & Martin, 2022. "Social capital II: determinants of economic connectedness," Nature, Nature, vol. 608(7921), pages 122-134, August.
    12. John Bound & Breno Braga & Gaurav Khanna & Sarah Turner, 2019. "Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce," NBER Working Papers 25945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Seth D. Zimmerman, 2019. "Elite Colleges and Upward Mobility to Top Jobs and Top Incomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 1-47, January.
    14. Michael J. Andrews, 2023. "How Do Institutions of Higher Education Affect Local Invention? Evidence from the Establishment of US Colleges," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 1-41, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Niswonger, 2022. "What You See is What You Get: Local Labor Markets and Skill Acquisition," Papers 2209.03892, arXiv.org.
    2. Beine, Michel & Peri, Giovanni & Raux, Morgan, 2023. "International college students’ impact on the US skilled labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    3. Yulia Evsyukova & Felix Rusche & Wladislaw Mill, 2025. "LinkedOut? A Field Experiment on Discrimination in Job Network Formation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(1), pages 283-334.
    4. David Dorn & Florian Schoner & Moritz Seebacher & Lisa Simon & Ludger Woessmann, 2024. "Multidimensional Skills on LinkedIn Profiles: Measuring Human Capital and the Gender Skill Gap," Papers 2409.18638, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
    5. Raux, Morgan, 2023. "Recruitment Competition and Labor Demand for High-Skilled Foreign Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 16554, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Garrett Anstreicher & Lois Miller, 2024. "Who Scars the Easiest? College Quality and the Effects of Graduating into a Recession," Working Papers 24-47, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Brox, Enzo & Krieger, Tommy, 2025. "Far-right mass protests and their effects on internal migration," ZEW Discussion Papers 25-045, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cattan, Sarah & Salvanes, Kjell G. & Tominey, Emma, 2022. "First Generation Elite: The Role of School Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 15560, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Cook, Emily E. & Turner, Sarah, 2022. "Progressivity of pricing at US public universities," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. John Bound & Breno Braga & Gaurav Khanna & Sarah Turner, 2019. "Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce," NBER Working Papers 25945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bleemer , Zachary & Mehta, Aashish, 2021. "College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification," University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education qt513249vg, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.
    5. Winters, John V., 2014. "The Production and Stock of College Graduates for U.S. States," IZA Discussion Papers 8730, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Miller, Lois & Park, Minseon, 2022. "Making college affordable? The impacts of tuition freezes and caps," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Joshua Goodman & Oded Gurantz & Jonathan Smith, 2020. "Take Two! SAT Retaking and College Enrollment Gaps," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 115-158, May.
    8. M. A. Bautista & F. Gonz�lez & L. R. Mart�nez & P. Mu�oz & M. Prem, 2020. "Chile’s Missing Students: Dictatorship, Higher Education and Social Mobility," Documentos de Trabajo 18163, Universidad del Rosario.
    9. Aina, Carmen & Baici, Eliana & Casalone, Giorgia & Pastore, Francesco, 2018. "The Economics of University Dropouts and Delayed Graduation: A Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 11421, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Kaufmann, Katja Maria & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Beliefs about Maternal Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 15788, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Riley K. Acton & Kalena Cortes & Camila Morales, 2024. "Distance to Opportunity: Higher Education Deserts and College Enrollment Choices," NBER Working Papers 33085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Bricker, Jesse & Li, Geng, 2024. "Your friends, your credit: Social capital measures derived from social media and the credit market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    13. J. Anthony Cookson & Corbin Fox & Javier Gil-Bazo & Juan Imbet & Christoph Schiller, 2024. "Social Media as a Bank Run Catalyst," Working Papers hal-04400382, HAL.
    14. D’Agostino, T.J. & Madero, Cristóbal, 2023. "The Machuca experience: A retrospective case study of school-based socio-economic integration," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    15. Callais, Justin & Geloso, Vincent, 2024. "Wealth generation: How to boost income mobility in the UK," IEA Discussion Papers 122, Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).
    16. Gordon Hanson & Dani Rodrik & Rohan Sandhu, 2025. "The US Place-Based Policy Supply Chain," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Place-Based Policies, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Joseph G. Altonji & Seth D. Zimmerman, 2018. "The Costs of and Net Returns to College Major," NBER Chapters, in: Productivity in Higher Education, pages 133-176, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Bautista, María Angélica & Gonzalez, Felipe & Martinez, Luis R. & Muñoz, Pablo & Prem, Mounu, 2022. "The Intergenerational Transmission of College: Evidence from the 1973 Coup in Chile," SocArXiv eyw2a, Center for Open Science.
    19. Luisa Gagliardi,, "undated". "The World’s Rust Belts: The Heterogeneous Effects of Deindustrialization on 1,993 Cities in Six Countries," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 2317, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin).
    20. Bietenbeck, Jan & Leibing, Andreas & Marcus, Jan & Weinhardt, Felix, 2023. "Tuition fees and educational attainment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J40 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - General
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.