In-State Workforce Retention of Utah's Postsecondary Graduates (February 2020)

The state of Utah values postsecondary graduates who remain in the state as they become contributors to a well-educated workforce. However, little is known about the factors that influence their decision to stay in Utah. This study aims to identify the characteristics that impact workforce retention following graduation. To accomplish this, data were obtained from the Utah Data Research Center (UDRC), which incorporates data from the Utah Department of Workforce Services, the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), and the Utah System of Technical Colleges (UTech). The study used two cohorts: students who graduated from a USHE institution in 2013 and those who completed an award through UTech in 2013. Analysis included a retrospective look at retention by various characteristics of the graduates including: geographic origin, gender, age, race/ethnicity, field of study, award level, graduating institution, and financial aid. Our analysis suggests that USHE and UTech students who originated from Utah or worked before graduation had the highest likelihood of remaining in the state after graduation. This study also predicted the retention rates of the 2016 cohort using gradient boosted decision trees and artificial neural networks. For 2021, it is predicted that 70.76% of USHE's graduates and 72.63% of UTech's graduates will be retained in Utah's workforce.