Brainstorming to End South Florida’s Brain-Drain

With South Florida struggling to retain its young professionals, community leaders held a forum to brainstorm solutions.

The steady exodus of young professionals out of South Florida — and into cities such as Seattle, Denver and Houston — has come to be referred to as the region’s “brain drain” problem. And it’s a problem that local economic leaders are deeply concerned about.

On Thursday, Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center put on its collective thinking caps in hopes of coming up with some solutions. At a lunchtime forum, Metropolitan Center Associate Director Edward Murray was joined by two speakers, one of whom fits the yuppie demographic himself, and another who spearheads a volunteer organization that mentors local youth.

All in all, the presenters identified some areas that Miami can pride itself on, and others that could certainly benefit from improvement. The bright spots include the emergence of Brickell and Wynwood as hip, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods with a distinctly big-city feel. It’s neighborhoods like that that often attract the well-educated young professionals who are increasingly important in today’s economy.

“Those two areas have really created the kind of district that you would see in a New York, in a Chicago,” Murray told the forum’s attendees.

Murray said an area’s “lifestyle options” and “livability” are key factors in attracting and retaining young talent. Some of the livability factors Murray identified — such as a well-functioning local transportation system — are issues that South Florida has long struggled with.

Yet Michael Simmons, a 25-year-old marketing specialist with Miami’s Kaufman Rossin accounting firm, said the region may have more going for it than people realize. Simmons cited statistics calling Miami No. 2 in the nation when it comes to fastest-growing wages, and No. 1 in the nation when it comes to growth in job openings — 10.2 percent in year-over-year growth, according to the job-search website SimplyHired.com.

But because the vast majority of South Florida employers are small businesses, Simmons said some recent college graduates may not be aware of how many local options they have.

“That’s, I think, where a little bit of the disconnect is,” Simmons said.

South Florida’s difficulty in retaining young talent stands in stark contrast to the many college degrees awarded by local higher education institutions. Miami-Dade County alone boasts numerous colleges, including the University of Miami, Florida International University and Miami Dade College. In Broward, the college options include Nova Southeastern University, Broward College, and three satellite campuses of Florida Atlantic University.

A study commissioned last year by the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade’s economic development agency, placed Miami-Dade 15th out of 15 similar metropolitan areas in the number of college-educated residents of any age.

Another study, this one performed by the Brookings Institute, ranked South Florida fifth among the top five metro areas losing residents in the 25- to 34-year-old age group.

“The majority of young people that I went to high school with are no longer in this community anymore,” said Saif Ishoof, the third speaker at Thursday’s brain drain forum. Ishoof said he graduated from Gulliver Preparatory School in Pinecrest, one of the region’s most prestigious private schools.

These days, Ishoof is executive director for City Year Miami, the local branch of a nationwide tutoring and mentoring initiative that targets underserved youth. If South Florida really wants to boost its pool of young talent, Ishoof argued that paying attention to public schools is key. By encouraging and mentoring students from poor backgrounds — students who could easily fall through the cracks and not realize their potential — Ishoof said the region boosts its number of successful young professionals. Ishoof cited one student at Miami Northwestern Senior High School that City Year volunteers noticed had a natural gift for architecture and design. With only three days before the application deadline, those volunteers worked around-the-clock to help this student gain admittance into Miami’s nationally-recognized Design and Architecture Senior High, a magnet school.

“The potential of young people should not be determined by your ZIP code,” Ishoof said.

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