Percentage of Out-Migrants with a Bachelor's Degree or Higher
If the college attainment rate of a state's out-migrants is higher than the attainment rate of its in-migrants, then it is a Big Sort loser. States with the smallest proportions of out-migrants who are college educated include Nevada, Arizona, California, Florida and Arkansas.
This statistic measures the educational attainment of out-migrants. It is computed by dividing the number of persons 25 years old and older with a four-year degree or higher level of education who moved out of a state over the five years 1995 to 2000 by the total number of persons 25 years and older who moved out of the state over the five years 1995 to 2000. Please note that persons with higher levels of education are more likely to move than other Americans. As a result, the educational level of a state’s in-migrants and out-migrants is generally higher than its overall educational attainment. These data were taken from Census 2000 public use microdata obtained from Ruggles, S. and M. Sobek, "Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0.," located online at http://www.ipums.org. Joseph Cortright, vice president/economist of Impresa Consulting, provided consulting support on developing and analyzing these data.
