Connecticut has lost a higher percentage of its 25-to-34-year-old population since 2000 than any other state in the nation. In 2006, nearly half of all high school seniors seeking higher education went to out-of-state universities; many probably never to return. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Connecticut residents, who graduated from the Connecticut State Universities (Western, Central, Southern, and Eastern), left the state to find work in 2005. Although some 85 percent of CSUS graduates remain in state, that is still a significant loss.

Losing young, educated persons bodes ill for a state where economic health depends upon competing with the best and brightest throughout the world. Business leaders surveyed in 2007, in the New Britain-Hartford-Springfield corridor, cited the availability of qualified workers as the second greatest challenge to their successful operations.
They thought it would get worse in the next five years and that businesses and universities must work in concert to entice more students to live and work here.

Compounding the loss is an aging population and the retirement of “baby boomers” that is on the horizon. Retaining their knowledge will require qualified youth able to get on-the-job apprentice experience and be mentored in the work environment.

The Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) at Central Connecticut State University is seeking the reasons for this statewide out migration and the strategies that will stop the loss of this essential talent. In order to more fully and personally explore this issue, the IMRP is collaborating with Hartford’s HartBeat Theater Ensemble and Portland, Oregon’s Sojourn Theatre to directly engage youth, both in an education setting and in the workplace, who are confronting (or will soon be ) the choice of leaving or staying in Connecticut. The theater groups use an innovative approach of interactive dialogue coupled with fact-based theatrical enactments to intensive and clarify specific themes.

“We have traditionally taken a top-down approach to developing and implementing local and regional solutions to accepted problems in Connecticut. Legislative theater is a great way of pulling the expertise out of our communities, and letting them guide us in both framing the issues and recommending concrete solutions,” says Andrew Clark, director of the IMRP. The purpose is to provide a voice that will shape future state policy.

Thus far, ensemble workshops have been conducted at Central Connecticut State University, the University of Hartford, Trinity College, Capital Community College, Hartford City Hall and the Legislative Office Building.

Many factors influence where young people choose to live. Many in the state are focusing on employment and affordable housing as ways to encourage them to reside in CT. However, as has been learned in the IMRP’s ensemble workshops, for many young people a suitable place to live takes precedence over job considerations. They are looking for diversity, activity, interaction and stimulating community life. Understanding this concept is important for cities like New Britain that are trying to reinvent themselves. Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and Boston, Massachusetts have attracted large, diverse, young populations and are excellent examples of this cultural phenomenon. Retaining our youth must be addressed by the state and its cities; our economic future depends on it.