Sweet home Indiana

How many have considered where to live after their four to seven years at IU? Content to hang around? Plan on moving as far away from the Hoosier state as humanly possible?\nIf you've decided that you're sick of the state where corn is king, we understand. But what if the state government made you an offer you can't refuse? No, you will not be finding any bloody horse heads in your sheets tomorrow morning -- Indiana has apparently come to the conclusion that monetary incentives tend to be more convincing than that. \nIf Mitch Daniels' "Hoosier Hope Scholarships" gets the green light from the legislative powers that be, Indiana may soon be offering students a $20,000 scholarship over four years. But as a repayment for the state's generosity, any student accepting this financial assistance would be required to remain in the state of Indiana for three years after graduation. This program, intended to stop the "brain drain" of educated youngsters from the state, could provide a much-needed boost to the desire of working in the less-than-appealing Indiana job market. \nSo is this initiative asking too much? Or will it be effective in keeping cash-strapped graduates from sowing their wild oats elsewhere?\nWell, call us sellouts if you must, but we see little to speak ill of in this proposal.\nIndiana has a history of problems retaining its young intellectuals. In fact, more than one in three native Hoosiers who attend Indiana schools leave the state after graduation. The truth of the matter is that the brain drain operates in a vicious cycle, which Daniels' proposal hopes to break. Upon completing its education, Indiana's crop of college graduates often migrate to out-of-state cities to seek more professional and industrial job opportunities than Indiana has to offer. And because Indiana loses these industrious minds to other states, there is no one left at home to start up businesses and institutions to provide the next generation of college graduates exciting jobs. And so, the process repeats.\nBy no means is Indiana the only state with such a program in the works. Missouri offers forgivable loans for life science students who commit to working for in-state companies. Maryland also had a forgivable loans program for several years, particularly in the fields of science and technology.\nSince we need the money and Indiana needs the brain power, it only seems natural that we help each other out. Besides, the efforts to actually brainwash the stream of young intellectuals in the Hoosier state has proven fairly ineffective, and that really seems to be the only alternative. \n(You want to stay in Indiana. You want to stay in Indiana. You want to stay in Indiana!) \nForget that -- it's never going to work. Although using mind control to brainwash IDS readers is much cheaper than paying them to stay here, it was worth a try, but we'll have to keep working on it. In the meantime, we support Mitch Daniels' proposal and are eagerly anticipating its results.