Many newly graduated college alumni like the familiarity of the college town, so they stick around after they get the degree for one reason or another. It’s still known as ‘home,’ making escaping hard.
“I love this area,” said Katie Ambrosini, a senior at the University of Mary Washington who is graduating in a few weeks with an English degree and currently works at a nearby Starbucks. I want to try to get a full-time job if I can,” she said, putting her degree to work.
Maggie Clegg felt the same about Fredericksburg after meeting her husband Alex when they were both in the same dorm as freshmen at UMW and got engaged on one of their homecoming weekends. After graduating in 2017, they moved to Seattle, Chicago, and then back to Fredericksburg, where she opened “Blue Hour Vintage” on Caroline Street. “We missed Virginia, we missed Fredericksburg,” she said, “Fredericksburg has always felt like home.” They both know a few UMW alums who have returned to raise a family here.
Emma and Paul Stoddard grew attached to the area, too. Both graduated from Mary Washington, but they were years apart. Paul graduated in 2001 and stayed in the area, honing his skills in restaurant management, working several years at the Sunken Well Tavern. Emma moved away for a few months after graduating but moved back and worked a few places before getting her real estate license and becoming an agent.
As fate would have it, the two met and were married before taking on a big job of turning one of the old houses in downtown Fredericksburg into a restaurant. Beginning last summer, they started work on this project along William Street and recently got their Galvin’s Deli sign on the front so they are planning to open sometime soon. See their work here.
This is a common trend, said the W.E. Upjohn Institute, which did a study on this trend, summed up in an Employment Research document called “New Data Show How Far Graduates Move from Their College, and Why It Matters.” In their findings, about half of the graduates work in the same metro area, and two-thirds still live in the same state.
Virginia falls under the “Net exporters of college graduates,” where more than 31 percent move away. The states invest money to keep these upcoming professionals around so when they move, it’s called a “brain drain,” the W.E. Upjohn Institute said. Many times, the net exporter states are “disproportionately rural states,” it said.
Ten states, including Washington, D.C., import more graduates than their colleges produce. These include Massachusetts, New York, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Washington. Ambrosini is taking a Career Development class and working with other students to discuss plans after graduation. Some are returning to their childhood home in Washington, D.C. to begin their job search.
