The Migration of High School Graduates to College

Abstract

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that over 250,000 high school graduates moved across state lines to enroll in college in 2008. The choices made by these high ability individuals may have long-lasting implications for state economies; not only do they contribute to state and local economies through their tuition and daily living costs while studying, but many of them will be retained in the workforce in the state in which they graduate. This paper argues that inadequate attention has been paid to the spatial processes that underpin such migrations. Specifically, models are required that simultaneously consider the characteristics of both migration origins and destinations and their relative spatial arrangements. Thus, the purpose of this research is to present an alternative, explicitly spatial, approach to modeling the migration of high school graduates to college. Our results provide new insights into the factors that determine such flows and have direct relevance to policy-making in this sphere.