Providence sees jump in advanced-degree holders

What do Providence, Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis all have in common?
According to a recent study, their workforces are filling with the kind of brainy, post-graduate degree holders capable of driving today’s knowledge economies.
Between 2005 and last year, those metro areas saw the three largest increases nationally in the percentage of their labor forces holding an advanced degree, according to “A Newer Economy of Jobs,” a paper written by three researchers at Cleveland State University.
The labor force in the nation’s capital, which saw the largest gain in advanced-degree concentration over that eight-year span, now has the highest percentage of available post-graduate workers of any metro area, fitting that city’s status as a boomtown rivaling New York, Boston and Silicon Valley.
But the second-largest increase in advanced-degree-holder percentage belonged to diminutive, unemployment-addled Providence, a metro area known for its struggle to find an answer to the decline of manufacturing.
The Providence area, which includes Bristol County, Mass., in addition to almost all of Rhode Island, went from having 10.7 percent of the labor force with advanced degrees in 2005 to 16.3 percent last year, a 5.6 percent increase.
Washington, D.C., by comparison, went from 21.6 percent to 27.48 percent, a 5.9 percent increase over the same period, while Indianapolis’ shot up 5.5 percent to 17.1 percent.
So what does this unexpected distinction mean for the local economy and its future?
As the authors acknowledge, only time will tell.
The recent surge in educational attainment has propelled Providence to the 14th-highest concentration in advanced-degree holders nationally, but right behind it at 15th is struggling Detroit, a sign that maintaining a high percentage of people with master’s degrees and doctorates does not guarantee growth. (Detroit’s percentage of advanced degree holders rose 3.6 percent between 2005 and last year.)
Yet they argue that a strong rise in advanced-degree concentration is a potential leading indicator that a city, perhaps struggling now, is primed for a turnaround as long as favorable policies and circumstances remain in place.
“What we are looking for is an indicator that there is economic restructuring going on,” said Jim Russell, a geographer and one of the three co-authors of the study, in a phone interview. “Is there movement toward more knowledge-intensive industry?” Russell said more important than where a city ranks on the list are what’s driving changes in labor-force composition reflected in the education numbers.
On one level, the fact that more advanced degrees are being conferred by universities nationally means most cities should see gains in the share of the workforce holding them. Over the period examined in the Cleveland State study, the concentration of advanced degrees increased in all but five of the largest 40 metro areas.
In Rhode Island, the number of advanced degrees being awarded by universities has indeed been on the rise, steadily adding to the supply of new degree holders.
According to U.S. Department of Education statistics for Rhode Island, the number of advanced degrees (master’s, doctorates and professional degrees) conferred by schools in the state rose 22 percent between 2005 and 2013, from 2,784 to 3,396.
Of course, earning your degree in a city does not mean you will work or stay there. The brain drain of students leaving Providence because of poor job prospects has long been cited as one of the area’s leading maladies.
Even if the number of people living in the Providence area after receiving their degree stayed the same or tracked the national increase, the area’s degree-holder percentage could surge if lower-skilled workers fled the area.
To some degree this did happen in the recession, when less-educated workers bore the brunt of layoffs in industries like construction and manufacturing.
But overall, the Providence metro labor force has remained about the same size over the last eight years, meaning low-skilled flight from the region likely does not explain all of the increase. In January 2013, there were 695,705 people in the labor force compared with 689,015 in January 2005.
At least some of the people who receive advanced degrees in the Providence area appear to be staying here.
Dan Egan, executive director of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island, which represents eight schools in the state, said member institutions have ramped up their post-graduate programs in the last decade.
“During the time period of the study, AICU Rhode Island’s member institutions have invested significant resources to expand their master’s, doctorate and professional degree program offerings,” Egan said in an email. “It is encouraging to see evidence that the highly skilled graduates of these programs may be transitioning into productive participants in our local economy.” The Cleveland State researchers, who include Richey Piiparinen and Charles Post, in addition to Russell, first dove into advanced-degree concentration as a potential window into northeast Ohio’s economic prospects.
The correlation between educational attainment and income had long been established, but they wanted to figure out specifically how cities vaulted from industrial economies relying on natural resources to knowledge economies fueled by education.
They decided to look at advanced-degree growth, which is collected in federal Current Population Survey data, but not tabulated, as an indicator of change.
While generally there is a link between advanced-degree concentration and economic performance, there are also exceptions, notably the so-called “Portlandia Paradox,” which is named after the Oregon city whose personal income and employment rates don’t match its education rates.
That example raises the question of whether Providence, like Portland, attracts the well-educated for its lifestyle and not its job prospects, creating a labor force filled with overqualified but underemployed residents.
State and metro data on the unemployment rates of advanced-degree holders was not available, but Rhode Island’s unemployment rate for the holders of bachelor’s degrees and higher – 4.3 percent in 2013 – is only slightly higher than the national average of 4 percent over the same period, according to state data.
Russell said his overall impression of Providence is that research opportunities at the city’s elite institutions are driving increases in the concentration of advanced degrees locally, more than places such as Portland.
“Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design – these are exportable higher educational institutions and Brown has excellent research,” Russell said. “I am guessing that these numbers have a lot to do with Brown and RISD drawing people from far away and that it is part of an economic restructuring.” •

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