Intern program aims to stop the 'leakage'

PROVO — Among Utah County's population of 400,000 are about 60,000 students who attend Brigham Young University or Utah Valley State College.

According to a study by a national business publication, Salt Lake City has the most college students per capita of any major metropolitan area in the country, said Russ Fotheringham, director of the Utah Valley Economic Development Association.

"And we're even higher than Salt Lake," said Fotheringham, referring to Utah County. "That makes us the highest concentration of college and university students in the United States. What is the No. 1 need of all business in the U.S.? Human resources."

But Utah County companies are not taking full advantage of the human resources that surround them, particularly at BYU, Fotheringham said, because many of those graduates depart the state once they receive their degrees.

"There are bright students coming to BYU from all over the country and all over the world," Fotheringham said. "How can we keep them here in Utah?"

The large number of graduates who leave is called the "leakage rate," he said.

Of BYU's graduating class in April 2003, about 19 percent of business graduates remained in the state, said Joseph Ogden of BYU's Marriott School of Management. About 40 percent of the graduates from the engineering department remain in Utah, according to Lloyd Hawkins of the school's Career Placement Services.

"We want a much higher percentage to stay here," Fotheringham said. "I don't know what the overall leakage rate is, but we have to be one of the highest leakage rates in the United States. We've got to stop the bleeding. We're investigating better ways of connecting UVEDA with BYU."

In an attempt to address this retention deficit, UVEDA has helped set up the Utah Intern Program, which matches students with local businesses. Fotheringham says the program is mutually beneficial.

"Students have a good chance of being hired once they are done with an internship with a company, while companies have the first shot at the best students," Fotheringham said.

There are various reasons why a high number of BYU graduates depart Utah — including the fact that many of them hail from out of state, Hawkins said. Still, he likes UVEDA's idea of providing more local internships. Many BYU students would likely serve internships in Utah Valley, rather than out of state, if more opportunities were available, he said.

Another important commodity found in Utah County is the large number of students and residents who speak a wide array of foreign languages because of the high concentration of returned missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"BYU teaches more languages — at least 70 — than anywhere else in the nation," Fotheringham said. "Nobody compares to BYU in language training. There are only three places with people who speak all of these languages — Washington, D.C.; the United Nations in New York City and Utah Valley."

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E-mail: jeffc@desnews.com

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