<p>“I could never understand why the citizens kept electing overeducated elitist millionaire Democrats to state office.”</p>
<p>'cause it reminds them of themselves, if they bought cheap houses in the 70’s. ;)</p>
<p>Reminds me of the Yogi Berra line:</p>
<p>“Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It’s too crowded.”</p>
<p>Okay, maybe someone on this thread knows about current housing costs in Boston. A little background: back in 1978-79 I worked in Boston for a non-profit clinic. My salary was $14,000, which I thought was fine–before I began apartment hunting. Friends of mine back in Minnesota were making similar salaries and living in lovely old apartment buildings with hardwood floors near Mpls’s chain of lakes, whereas I could only afford a room in a cardboardy house near Central Square. Oh, and my MN friends had cars, but in Boston, I could not afford one.</p>
<p>Now, 29 years later, my about-to-be-college-graduate daughter has received a job offer in Boston. It is also for a non-profit, kind of an “internship,” and the salary is $20,000. She is excited about the position itself and about living in Boston, but wonders if she can live on the salary, and so hasn’t accepted it yet. I told her that, like the younger me, she would be limited to a room in a house and would not have a car, but I actually fear she would be a LOT poorer than I was back then. Any comments?</p>
<p>SuNa, I think you are right. </p>
<p>TourGuide, neither senator has anything to do with the cost of housing in MA.</p>
<p>D loves the NE and is attending college in MA (left TX). She would love to stay in the area, and loves cold weather, but realizes that won’t happen. She will be looking southward when she graduates.</p>
<p>My fiance and I both live on my $28,000 grad school stipend, so I guess we are proportionally poorer than your daughter would be. 
I mean, we do live like misers, but we’re putting away a lot of money into savings/IRAs per month.</p>
<p>You’re right that your daughter will likely have to live with roommates in some way – a studio in the city goes for about $800-1100 a month.</p>
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<p>In more than a few cases known to me personally, to midwest college towns. It is far cheaper to live in most places in the midwest than any place in MA. I’m not claiming there are no trade-offs, but many people are willing to make the trade to raise their kids in a far less expensive environment.</p>
<p>One more observation: I lived in western MA for fifteen years. The housing prices even out in the boonies were shockingly high, as were the cost of insurance, food, home heating fuel, and just about everything else. My observation was that young people relied very heavily on help from their parents or grandparents to purchase their first homes, unlike the situation here.</p>
<p>Mass. is a mess and pretty apt to stay that way. High taxes, hostile business environment, and full of NIMBY’s. Wonder why we don’t vote guys from Mass into the White House?</p>
<p>The issue as to why not very many stay in Mass has little to do with the cost of living. A significant amount of Mass’ population is students and I don’t think a lot of people realize just how many are from out of state. When I was in school, the most represented state at my uni was New York, not Mass (and I believe that is still so today).</p>
<p>Where are these kids going? Back home. It has little to do with how attractive of a place Boston is to live–most kids simply want to go back home.</p>
<p>Some firms are having a bit of trouble finding the right people. I know that my firm refers more people to the NY office than it interviews for Boston (at least at my school).</p>
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Yeah, and look how well that worked out.</p>
<p>“Where are these kids going? Back home. It has little to do with how attractive of a place Boston is to live–most kids simply want to go back home.” Yes, but that said, and agreed to in part, many kids who do go back home wind up living with their parents, even if temporarily, others follow job offers and the housing follows. With the cost of homes and condos, associated fees, taxes, etc so high, I don’t think it is all that unusual for growing numbers of young people to rely on help from their parents or grandparents - just as many young people these days rely on their help to get through college. That said, is this scheme incentive enough to break the cycle and to attract both instate and OOS college grads to buy property (and one assumes therefore work and live) in the state where they went to college?</p>
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<p>ryan, I don’t doubt that the majority of private college students in MA are from out of state, or that they never intended to stay in MA. I don’t think that is really relevant to the problem being addressed by this proposal, however. Public colleges and universities–populated by state residents–are a drain on the public coffers UNLESS most of the students stay put after graduation and use their skills at home. I’m guessing there is some data indicating that public college grads are leaving the state at a higher rate than in the past. Certainly most of my students at UMass were from Massachusetts, and many of them expressed dismay at the cost of living in the Boston area and worried about being able to stay in the state.</p>
<p>Of course, 10K is not enough to do the job. And it isn’t the right approach, anyway.</p>
<p>You’re also discounting the number of kids who come to school in Boston and would otherwise decide to stay. (I and my husband are cases in point.) A significant proportion of the population in our age bracket are transplants, lured to Boston by schools. Boston’s a great town. </p>
<p>In previous years, those who graduated and wanted to stay could do so. The problem is that now, housing costs are prohibitive, so the kids can’t stay. That’s why it becomes the “brain drain”. Then businesses who want to hire the young, talented kids move out of the area because they can’t pay enough to allow the kids to live comfortably. Then there are no jobs, and the kids move away. Vicious circle.</p>
<p>Agreed that 10K won’t change it.</p>
<p>Then, what will change it?</p>
<p>I think Massachussetts needs to really shore up its state school system starting with that Amherst campus which is the flagship school. That school has no excuse NOT to be a top state uni with its enviable consortium privileges. That is does not have the top ratings and reputation is something the state should be ashamed of. If it could transform its flagship to the order of a UVA or UMich or even to Penn State level, it would really make a difference in the brain drain. It should also be shoring up its ancillary colleges as well, perhaps modeling OHio in having a number of good state school choices.</p>
<p>CPT I pretty much agree with the ^^ - with 2 kiddos who would not even consider any state school in MA - even with qualifying grants - no way - now back to the discussion at hand.</p>
<p>Private Joker:</p>
<p>The reason I suggested that a housing stipend is the wrong approach is because it would exacerbate what seems to me is the main problem: high taxes. As far as I can see, the only way to pay for the program is by raising taxes or reducing spending on discretionary programs (perhaps education). The cost of living is already very high compared to many other states; it doesn’t seem to make sense to make it still more expensive for those who are already working. They might decide to leave, too.</p>
<p>So, what might change the situation? Perhaps a big reduction in personal income taxes to start. </p>
<p>That doesn’t address the comments of some of the young people interviewed in the article, who stated they are just tired of the scenery and want to see what else is out there. Of course, there is no reason to believe the reporter just happened across a representative sample, but their comments reminded me of what I had concluded by the time I moved out of MA over a decade ago: it is a fantastic place to live if you have a lot of money. If you don’t, the positive aspects (geography, sense of history, cultural attractions) are outweighed by the cost of living. When people were less mobile, more rooted, it was easier for the state to hold onto people living on the margin, but young people are more inclined now to take their chances elsewhere. (Just an opinion from someone who is now an outsider. Where are all the regular posters who live in MA? No opinions?)</p>
<p>I don’t think that MA suffers unduly from high taxes. It was the case back in the 1970s and 1980s but it no longer is. Housing costs are the main culprits, and they are not the result of high taxes but other factors such as too little land available for new housing. </p>
<p>Giving $10k as a housing stipend would not only not help first time home buyers but it might even drive prices up.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse,</p>
<p>Ohio is not a very good model; California is much better. California’s deliniated purpose, three solar sytems of research U’s, teaching U’s and community colleges each under strong central control is, I suspect, much better than Ohio’s decentralized, collection of 12 or 13 middling (at best) research universities (all trying to be research U’s but only OSU succeeding and OSU is not even in the top half of the Big Ten). </p>
<p>With all of this moaning about Massachusetts, just consider that Mass. possibly has more top colleges and unversities than all other states with the possible exception of California. When one adjusts for the number of students serviced at those top schools by dividing by the population of Massachusetts, the state of MA is very fortunate.</p>
<p>Employers want an abundant supply of low cost but highly skilled workers while legislators want large quantities of highly compensated workers (to tax them). </p>
<p>The price of housing in MA suggests that people in MA can afford to pay such high prices.</p>
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<p>Not quite. Employers want a low cost operation, which means TOTAL costs, including labor, equipment, rent, utilities, transportation, taxes, housing costs for the owners, etc. The simple fact is that the states in the south and southwest have much lower total costs of operation, including labor – they are growing and the north is not.</p>