This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50% of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67% 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.

中文翻译：

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忙碌的毕业生：衡量毕业生的大学特定劳动力市场


本文介绍了美国各地学院和大学所服务的劳动力市场的新衡量标准。大约 50% 的应届大学毕业生在距离他们就读院校最近的都市区生活和工作，而州内这一数字攀升至 67%。对于高度选择性的四年制院校来说，校友的地理分布是两年制院校的两倍多。然而，超过四分之一的两年制院校的校友分布比一般公立四年制院校更加多样化。在这些数据的一项应用中，我们发现大学毕业生所在的劳动力市场的平均强度可以预测大学特定的代际经济流动性。在第二个应用中，我们量化了跨地区“人才流失”的程度，并说明了在估计高等教育公共投资的社会回报时考虑大学毕业生移民模式的重要性。