Is Alabama prepared to lose its future BSC graduates—eventual taxpayers and citizens—to other states?

Were my undergraduate advisor, Dr. Natalie Davis, reading over my shoulder, she might suggest I remove all questions from my draft. “Rhetorical questions do not lend themselves to the level of formality you are looking for.” And Birmingham-Southern’s political-science graduates spanning multiple decades know that it is wise to avoid disappointing Dr. Davis.

It is the superior level of instruction that I received from Dr. Davis—and from Dr. Brasher, Kim Lewis, Ben Newhouse, and too many others to list—that spurred me to write in defense of Birmingham-Southern. This along with my being a third-generation Southern graduate. Few would consider me unbiased; I have a deep affection for my alma mater.

Since graduating, I have had the good fortune of working at an education advisory firm, EAB (shortened from its original name, Education Advisory Board), where we serve thousands of colleges and universities across the country. I have spent my career working with many tuition-driven, private institutions like Birmingham-Southern. These schools change their students’ lives by knowing their names, their needs, and nudging them to achieve all they can.

Birmingham-Southern offers a similarly personal and life-altering experience. Its alumni have become teachers, doctors, chemists, Vice Presidents of the Federal Reserve, solicitors general, and CEOs of organizations with thousands of employees.

Many of the issues surrounding Birmingham-Southern’s request for one-time funds have already been litigated and relitigated, so I will do my best to cover fresh ground by focusing on one simple but pivotal question:

Is Alabama prepared to lose its future BSC graduates—eventual taxpayers and citizens—to other states?

With Alabama’s high school population in decline, and with the state’s historic difficulty in keeping its college graduates in Alabama after graduation, the question is particularly consequential.

Alabama’s annual high school graduating class is shrinking faster than many other states. 52,550 students graduated from an Alabama high school in 2020. The annual number is projected to fall to 49,810 students by 2030. In other words, Alabama stands to lose 5.2% of its annual high school graduating class in the next decade.

This pool of graduating students is dwindling eight times faster than the national average and is also shrinking faster than Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas.

If this trend continues—and there’s every reason to believe it will—Alabama will hurt for talent in the long run and struggle to compete with other states.

Perhaps most alarming of all is that Alabama has continuously struggled with losing its college graduates to other states. Alabama loses 80% of the out-of-state high school students who attend college in Alabama and more than a third of its in-state high school students who attend college in Alabama, making it the third worst state at keeping its graduates in-state after they leave college.

With this unsolved brain drain, why would Alabama allow Birmingham-Southern to close and give itself fewer chances to keep its college graduates in the state after graduation?

Birmingham-Southern advantages the state in that it consistently nets hundreds of in-state students annually by enrolling them as students. It routinely attracts hundreds of out-of-state students, too. More than a third of Birmingham-Southern’s 2022 entering class consisted of students hailing from a different state.

Some of these would-be students, both in-state and out-of-state, would instead choose UAB or Auburn or Spring Hill, but many others would enroll at another institution offering a more similar experience: Rhodes, Sewanee, Berry, or another institution in BSC’s conference. (These schools are all high-quality choices but not all of them benefit Alabama.)

And fewer Birmingham-Southern students of course means fewer Alabama citizens. Of the 17,000 alumni in the College’s records, 56% of Birmingham-Southern’s alumni reside in Alabama, paying taxes and contributing to their communities across the state. The number increases each year.

The spending of current BSC students should also be considered. It is estimated that each student annually spends an average of $12,690, resulting in more than $12 million being spent in Alabama’s economy every year by students alone (not including faculty, staff, etc.).

But it is not just the quantity of graduates or spending of students that matters—it is the greatly needed impact that Birmingham-Southern alumni make through their vocations, as well.

Many of these alumni living in Alabama are educators, serving in a state that had 7.14 teaching vacancies for every 100 teachers—the second worst vacancy ratio of any state in the country. Many other alumni are doctors, practicing in Alabama where there is expected to be a shortage of 612 primary care physicians for the state’s needs by 2030. Southern’s longstanding reputation of producing top-tier teachers and doctors should be something of acute consideration for the legislature.

Birmingham-Southern students and graduates—current and future—provide a great deal of value to Alabama.

And so, when evaluating the merits of Birmingham-Southern’s one-time request for state funds from Alabama’s extraordinary budget surplus, the question should again be asked:

Is Alabama prepared to lose its future BSC graduates—eventual taxpayers and citizens—to other states?

Graham Spencer graduated from Birmingham-Southern in 2016. He and his wife, Ashley Spencer (BSC graduate of 2015), live in New York City. His mother is a faculty member at Birmingham-Southern, and his brother is a current student at Birmingham-Southern.