By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
Kelley Veneskey always wanted to get away from home. As graduation from Highland High School loomed, the 4.02 GPA student made a beeline for the East Coast. She visited 13 colleges, hitting Smith College in Massachusetts last.
“I fell madly in love,” she said.
It wasn’t just Smith — upon graduation, she moved to Boston, Mass., where open mike nights, a racially diverse and an openly vibrant gay community made her feel at home.
Neatly dressed in a light jacket, wearing her red hair in a ponytail, at a recent lunch, Veneskey spoke with the open, friendly demeanor Hoosiers pride themselves on.
Now 23, she moved back to Indiana this summer to be close to her family and settled in the Indianapolis area. She’s planning to go to veterinary school at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis in the fall.
“It’s nice to go back and see my family, but I don’t belong,” she said. Unless a great job opportunity in a veterinarian’s office opens up, she doesn’t ever see herself returning to Anderson.
Madison County continues to lose 20-somethings like Veneskey. According to U.S. Census figures, the county’s 20-to-24 population decreased 24 percent from 2000 to 2005 while 24-to-34 population dropped 15 percent.
The population overall, meanwhile, decreased 6 percent.
When 20-somethings leave en masse, either in search of a better job or a more vibrant nightlife, the resulting brain drain has negative ripple effects throughout local economy, experts say.
Not all young adults in Madison County are packing their bags. Some stay in the county to live even though they leave to work and a few even move in from out of town.
“Young people are like a wild card,” Ball State University Economics professor Patrick Barkey said. “If you’re growing, you’re young; if you’re not growing, you’re older.”
The median age in Madison County has increased from 2000 to 2005 from 37.4 years to 38.9, according to the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University.
While the county’s overall wage-earning power usually holds steady, since older adults earn more, a shrinking young population is painful in other ways. It means fewer students and fewer taxes going to schools, a decrease in new home construction that contributes to higher housing costs, and a decline in the number of retail stores, which results in less competition and higher prices.
So why do they leave?
For many, it’s about job opportunities, according to a 1999 study by the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute.
Madison County isn’t the only region waving goodbye to its young people. While Indiana produces about 20 percent more four-year graduates than the national average, the numbers that stay is 30 percent below the national average.
About a third of graduates from Indiana’s public post-secondary schools left the state — and stayed away.
“The demand for graduates of Indiana’s colleges and universities is not sufficient, from the viewpoint of the graduates themselves, in to retain them within the Indiana economy,” the study found.
And the Madison County job market is tighter than the rest of the state.
From 1969 to 2002, Madison County was one of just eight counties in Indiana (out of 92) that sustained an overall job loss, according to Indiana Business Research Center at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, in a study dated July 2004.
During that time, 23 counties had more than 100 percent job growth.
Those graduates who stayed in the state generally said family was a higher priority than jobs. While 20-somethings from Madison County also said family is important, many decided the Indianapolis area was plenty close to their loved ones while still offering the job opportunities and excitement they crave.
Employment was part of the reason why Alicia Hay, a 24-year-old police officer, decided to move to the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers.
“The job opportunities in Fishers are just booming,” she said. After attending Ball State University and the police academy, she found a spot in the Fishers police force, where, she said, the pay and benefits are better than in Madison County.
“Anderson was a nice town to grow up in,” she said. But, “after 18 years, I wanted to find my own town to live in.”
Lifestyle issues are also part of the picture. Life in the economically healthier Indianapolis area is “nicer,” from the brick buildings to the downtown bars.
“I always wanted to move to Indianapolis,” she said. Her brother and sister also moved to Hamilton County, and they’re trying to convince Mom and Dad to leave.
But not everyone working in the Indianapolis area decides to move there.
Derek Crandall is 26, lives in Pendleton, and works in electronic sales and design in Carmel.
He said that while the bigger city offers more, he likes “the small town. I get enough hustle and bustle through the week; it’s nice to come home to a quaint town.”
The cost of living, he said, is also substantially lower than in the wealthier community.
About 20 percent of the Madison County labor force commutes outside the county for work, according to the Indiana Business Research Center, a percentage that has decreased slightly since 2000, when 21 percent of people left the county to work.
But Madison County isn’t a total wasteland for 20-somethings. Some choose the community over Indianapolis or other big cities.
Wegahta Ghebremicael, 25, grew up in Indianapolis, but came to Anderson University when the school recruited him to play basketball. He learned the tax trade from a relative and opened his own business at the age of 21, while he was still in school. He and a cousin also opened a tax business in Las Vegas.
But it was in Anderson that he decided to build his “dream” business: Dreams Bar and Grill, to be located on Town Center Plaza. He’s invested about $150,000, which should open by the end of the year. The tax incentives for building there got his attention, but did the sense of community he found in the city.
“What made me stay is the people I got to know,” he said. “I started my first office here, and it’s hard to leave where you start: Anderson is my home.”
