In an attempt to keep graduate students within the state of Iowa, the Graduate and Professional Student Senates from each regent university have proposed a solution to the Board of Regents this week.

Joshua Schoenfeld, president of the University of Iowa’s graduate and professional student government, presented the Graduate and Professional Financial Retention Incentive on Wednesday to the board.

The proposal is expected to give graduate and professional students from any of the regent universities a 50 percent tax break for five years after their graduation and will be permitted as long as they stay in the state.

“This is something [each regent graduate senate has] been talking about for several years,” Schoenfeld said. “It was a joint effort.”

The proposal introduced data to the board that was gathered from a survey sent out to each constituent of a graduate senate member from every regent university.

Questions were asked about how much student debt a student has accumulated, what they are studying and the likelihood of them staying in Iowa.

According to the proposal, “only 47.6 percent of students are likely or very likely to remain in Iowa after graduation” and “only 14.6 percent of students are likely or very likely to remain in Iowa outside the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids and Des Moines areas after graduation.”

The proposal stated that “88.4 percent of undecided students would remain in the state with an incentive” and 56.1 percent of unlikely or very unlikely to remain students would also stay with an incentive.

“I think the tax break might encourage people to reconsider staying in Iowa and certainly ease the burden of graduate and professional student debt that accumulates,” said Zachary Zenko, ISU Graduate and Professional Student Senate president.

Students leaving their state after graduation to obtain employment opportunities in other states is a problem called “brain drain” that has grown over the years in the United States. Some students leave because they believe they will have more success and a better quality of life in a different state.

“Iowa is one state, Iowa has good opportunity here, but there’s just by nature of there being many other states compared to just Iowa, there’s typically more options elsewhere,” Zenko said.

The goal of the proposal is to retain those students and keep job growth stimulated in not just urbanized Iowa areas, but rural Iowa as well, which is the region outside Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

More than half of all graduate students from each regent reported they were unlikely/very unlikely to have employment in rural Iowa after graduation.

Schoenfeld said the board was “very interested in this proposal” but also “hesitant to show support” right away because it will be waiting for more accurate data, which is set to come in the spring of 2016.

The Board of Regents will not vote on this proposal, but rather will offer support. The Iowa government and legislators will have to vote on this proposal to be included in the education budget as early as spring of 2016.

The proposal has been submitted to Gov. Terry Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Linda Fandel, Branstad’s special assistant for education.

Ben Hammes, communications director for Branstad’s office, said Branstad has yet to read the proposal but “will carefully and thoughtfully review any legislation that is passed by the legislature and [which] comes to the governor’s desk.”

Schoenfeld said Branstad has worked on bringing high-skilled, professional employment opportunities to the state since he’s been in office, and paired with this proposal, it should be an incentive to keep young people in the state.

Zenko said the problem, however, is not that there aren’t enough jobs, but that some graduates are choosing to leave the state.

“Ninety-seven percent of our graduating masters and Ph.D and professional students […] have employment within six months or so of graduating,” he said. “I don’t think our graduates are becoming unemployed, but the tax incentive may tip the decision-making in favor of choosing an employment opportunity inside of Iowa.”

The proposal suggests the tax breaks for only five years after a professional student’s graduation in order to avoid making the state fiscally unsustainable.

“Incentivizing students to stay for five years allows them to increase their ‘roots’ in Iowa and are, therefore, much more likely to remain in the state after the incentive ends,” the proposal stated.

This proposal is not just incentivizing for graduate students, however. Schoenfeld said undergraduates will also have an interest in this because the same benefits can be applied to them if they choose to stay within the state.

It’s unlikely to see any downfalls of this proposal while the graduate senates wait for approval from the board following more data and a response from Branstad.

“I don’t foresee any negative consequences of this,” Zenko said. “I think, if nothing else, it contributes to the discussion about improving the quality of life and livelihoods of graduate professional students, which is important.”