Should Ohio award tax credits to college grads who stay in the Buckeye State?

Learn more about a proposal to provide tax incentives to recent college graduates.

perhaps the tax credits are not available to just anyone. Perhaps students who had their full tuition paid by the state (ie grad school) may owe the state some time. Perhaps the tax credits are available based upon the actual investment the student made in their own education. I am not sure of the exact answer, but it is a good idea.

Aren't most of your readers college grads and the parents of college grads and students? If you asked only chicken farmers whether future generations of chicken farmers should get a tax credit, wouldn't you expect the answer to be yes?
And who pays for a tax credit extended to college grads? Those who didn't get to go to college? That hardly seems fair, not to mention regressive in nature.
I would prefer to see tuition at state universities discounted for students who agree to remain in the state for a specified period after graduating, with a claw-back mechanism for those who reneg on the promise to stay.

Being an attractive area, a good place to do business, is one thing, and it's very desirable.

Tax credits are another, in this case. Essentially they say, this place is not attractive enough for you to be here of your own accord, so we'll bribe you to stick it out in sub-prime conditions. This will not attract the best and the brightest; they'll go where they have an upside and fantastic potential along with ease of succeeding.

You will, though, get more of the mediocre than you want to handle, those who haven't great prospects elsewhere and who know they can make money and mitigate risk by covering the downside, in this case, with tax credits. Don't we have enough of them already?

I have a few comments to address this issue:

1. As a college professor who is preparing future teachers, what I think may be a more attractive incentive to help our Ohio college graduates stay in Ohio would be some sort of subsidy or "tax break" to help pay off student loans.

When I first graduated as a teacher, I took a teaching position in an urban school district in Ohio with a high percentage of low SES students. Because of the poverty level in the district, the Federal government forgave a portion of my federal student loans every year I taught in that school system. Not only did the urban schools at that time pay higher starting salaries, the loan forgiveness put a lot more money in my pocket (which I probably spent on goods and services that helped the local economy of the community I lived in). Within 5 years, my loans were paid in full, and I was able to purchase a home, start and family and move on with my life. I continued to teach in Ohio for the remainder of my secondary teaching career.

A tax break sounds nice, but tying it into the student loans sounds even more attractive for many of our students.

2. Many of our graduates leave Ohio for more lucrative offers because they have student loans they need to pay off and want to do so as quickly as possible to move on with their lives - purchase homes, start a family, etc.

Our education graduates are leaving in droves partly because other states are offering them higher starting salaries than districts in Ohio are offering. They also offer to pay for their master's degree coursework, something Ohio law demands that entry teachers obtain within a few years of licensure in order to continue to teach in Ohio, but something a young entry level teacher cannot afford to do with the burden of student loans and the comparably lower wages in Ohio.

If one of our graduates gets a teaching job in Pennsylvania, the pay is much higher than the entry level teaching salaries in Ohio, so why work in Ohio when you can drive across the border to teach in a school with more resources available, earn a lot more money to pay down student loans faster, AND have the cost of your master's degree coursework subsidized as well? One of my recent graduates did just that, turning down an offer in a NE Ohio school district to earn a higher salary, teach in state of the art facilities with a generous operations budget, AND have her Master's degree coursework paid for. Economically it was a much better deal for her.

3. Another reason young teachers are leaving the state is because Ohio districts hire back their retired teachers, cutting back on available openings for entry level teachers; but that's another policy issue that someone needs to address. What will our local school districts do after all the new teachers leave Ohio to work elsewhere when the retired teachers in Ohio retire a second time??

3. Ohio employers needs to hire Ohio residents! My daughter, an Ohio resident and a recent college graduate from one of the top engineering schools in the country, recently accepted a job in Pittsburgh, PA. She looked all over Ohio for engineering jobs. No one in Ohio seemed to want to hire a female cum laude graduate with 2 engineering degrees and 18 months of professional engineering co-op experience. So another Ohio college graduate moved out of state and will be paying income taxes to, and purchasing goods and services in, Pennsylvania instead of Ohio. I guess Ohio will get $1.00 in turnpike tolls every time she wants to visit her parents. Perhaps there need to be incentives for those Ohio employers who hire college graduates who are Ohio residents and offer them a competitive wage and benefits package so that our young college graduate Ohio residents don't HAVE to accept job offers elsewhere.

Tax incentives sound like a nice quick fix, but our college graduates need to be OFFERED JOBS in Ohio if we want them to stay here and work!

I don't see how a tax credit would be enough to entice a college graduate to stay here. Now if you could help pay off student loans, that might make a difference. But a tax credit just isn't big enough to make it the major factor in a life decision.

Tax credits to keep students in Ohio is a good idea, but it must not be an end all solution. We need to attract professionals from other regions as well. We also want Ohio students to go elsewhere, get great experience and then bring it back, the boomerang effect. Bottom line is that keeping Ohio students in Ohio does not foster talent creation alone. Ohio needs to support service, cleantech, biotech, IT, software, advanced manufacturing and materials companies, get them to locate and grow in Ohio, and create a demand side to soak up Ohio talent and talent from anywhere else.

I think it is a great idea.

No. Luring college grads to stay here with tax credits instead of jobs will not help. They're leaving the area for jobs and the willingness to pay the higher taxes that go with jobs and higher incomes elsewhere.

I agreee that tax credits should be allowed for graduating Ohio college students who stay here, but they need to be credits across the board, NOT just from income tax.

Students have so much to pay back in loans upon graduating that a single income tax credit won't be a cure all. This is especially true if the student has chosen a field where jobs are few and far between and cannot find work right away anyhow. In such cases, a property tax benefit for first-time homebuyers, plus credits for sales taxes on various items, including gasoline, would be a blessing, and a true reason to want to stay here.

You have got to be kidding me. This is just what Ohio needs another GIVE AWAY PROGRAM!

If Ohio would pull it head from it's back side and quit allowing companies to leave once the tax abatements are gone, then the kids would have a job to stay for. This students leave Ohio for the same reason everyone it trying to leave....THERE IS NO WORK HERE!

Columbus is doing everything it can to run this companies out. Oh we have offers for 15 years of lower and in some cases NO taxes, but once the breaks are gone so is the companies. There is nothing wrong with tax breaks to a company to build in Ohio, but they should have strings attached that state that once the 15 years is up, they have to stay another 15 to make up the free stay.