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Review of Regional Research

, Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 189–208 | Cite as

Are they coming back? The mobility of university graduates in switzerland

  • Chantal OggenfussEmail author
  • Stefan C. Wolter
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

The present paper focus on the possible impact of university graduates’ internal mobility in Switzerland. This is an interesting setting because all the cantons have to bear the public costs for their students irrespective of the students’ study place of choice. As not all the cantons have a university, in some cantons students have to leave their home involuntarily to attend university. Focusing on the description of factors explaining internal graduate mobility, we investigate which of the cantons lose potential tax payers for which they had to bear the study costs and discuss the potential consequences on the financing of higher education. On average, half of the students who had left their place of living in order to study do not return to their home canton. Approximately half of those who do not return from the canton in which they studied move to a third canton. Besides other factors, which are linked to post-graduation mobility, we find that top-performing students return less often than low performers. As a consequence, the cantons without universities face a quantitative as well as a qualitative disadvantage compared to cantons with a university.

Keywords

Student mobility Graduate mobility Brain gain Brain drain 

Kehren sie Zurück? Die Mobilität von Hochschulabsolventinnen und -Absolventen in der Schweiz

Zusammenfassung

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die möglichen Auswirkungen der internen Mobilität von Hochschulabsolventen in der Schweiz. Ein empirisch interessantes Setting, da nicht alle Kantone eine Universität haben, müssen in einigen Kantonen die Studierenden ihre Heimat fürs Studium verlassen. Ausgehend von der Beschreibung der Faktoren, die die interne Mobilität der Absolventen erklären, untersuchen wir, welche der Kantone potenzielle Steuerzahler, für die sie die Studienkosten tragen mussten, verlieren und diskutieren mögliche Folgen für die Finanzierung der Hochschulbildung. Etwa die Hälfte derjenigen, die aus dem Kanton, in dem sie studiert haben, nicht zurückkehren, ziehen in einen dritten Kanton. Neben anderen Faktoren, die mit der Mobilität von Hochschulabsolventinnen und -absolventen zusammenhängen, stellen wir fest, dass leistungsstarke Studierende seltener zurückkehren als leistungsschwache. Dies hat zur Folge, dass die Herkunftskantone, die den Grossteil der Kosten auch für die mobilen Studierenden tragen, beim Verlust von Absolventinnen und Absolventen sowohl einen quantitativen wie qualitativen Nachteil haben.

JEL-codes

H52 H75 I23 J61 
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Notes

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in EducationAarauSwitzerland
  2. 2.Department of EconomicsUniversity of BernBerneSwitzerland
  3. 3.Ifo InstituteCESifoMunichGermany
  4. 4.IZABonnGermany

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