The effect of college location on migration of college-educated labor

This paper investigates the impact of attending college in a state on the probability of working in the state. I use information on the set of colleges students applied to as a way to account for selection in college-attendance patterns. For two samples of U.S. undergraduate students, I find a modest link between attending college in a state and working in the state. The magnitude of the effect raises doubts that location-choice considerations alone can justify state merit-scholarship programs, an increasingly popular form of student financial aid.