ORONO (AP) – Maine’s “brain drain” is not all it’s cracked up to be, according to a University of Maine study which challenges the oft-repeated assertion that talented young residents are leaving their home state in droves.

UMaine’s Office of Institutional Studies’ report focusing on the class of 2005 says nearly 74 percent of those who responded to surveys are employed full-time, and nearly two-thirds of those workers are in Maine.

Many of the 700 graduates who responded to the survey said they were juggling graduate school and work. The report was published last week.

Patricia Counihan, director of the UMaine Career Center, was not surprised by figures showing so many graduates are staying in Maine. Counihan acknowledged a decline in the percentages of those who were employed full-time and of working students who stayed in Maine.

But Counihan said the declines were relatively insignificant and that the figures from the past five years have been “pretty much the same.”

“It’s been pretty consistent over time now that two-thirds of our full-time working graduates stay in Maine,” Counihan told the Bangor Daily News. “If you were to ask me if this trend is going to continue, I think it will grow down the road.”

According to the study, the 73.9 percent of the graduates who said they were working full-time was down slightly from 75.4 percent reported a year earlier. The percentage of Maine natives who stayed in the state was down 2 percent from the previous year, and the number of non-Maine natives who stayed in Maine was down 9.4 percent.

In October, a report published by the Brookings Institution found that between 1992 and 2002, the state labor force lost 42,000 workers between the ages of 25 and 34. The Washington-based think tank cited Maine Department of Labor statistics.

John Dorrer of the Maine Department of Labor said the exodus included people who moved out of state, who remained in the state but left the work force, and those who died. Dorrer said the department will soon release a study to track the employment status and residence of UMaine students over the last decade or so.

But Dorrer said UMaine’s new report is consistent with his findings, which show that more than half of the UMaine students he looked at are still in Maine. On the “brain drain” notion, Dorrer said many young people have left Northern Maine due to a slowing economy, but have moved to the state’s more economically vibrant southern counties.

“There’s an exchange going on here,” he said. “Young people are following their economic interests. We can’t hold young people hostage. We have to prepare them, encourage them to explore the world and create attractive opportunities to come back to Maine.”

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