Plugging brain drain

Twenty-one-year-old Mala Sharma probably has a bright future ahead of her, but the Boston University senior isn't sure that includes living in the same city where she went to college.

A New York native who majored in engineering, Sharma wants a career in financial services and would like to stick around. But she has no offers from Boston companies, and Anheuser-Busch Cos. made a generous proposition to work as a manager in St. Louis -- an offer that looks better the closer she gets to graduation day.

"It's a very good offer and I have great connections there," she said. "And you get free beer."

It's the kind of talk that amounts to sacrilege for executives at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, which this week is sponsoring its second annual Hub Crawl, a series of meetings between local students and executives from top local finance firms.

Half of all college students in the Boston area leave after graduation, according to a 2003 chamber study, and 15.8 percent of the area's 20- to 34-year-olds left between 1990 and 2000, a "brain drain" that became the catalyst for the program, the goal of which is to keep as many students here after graduation as possible.

For students, the sessions are a chance to connect with top executives they hope to work for after college. Most show up clad in conservative suits and armed with resumes and questions about how to break in.

For the companies, it's an informal recruiting session where firms vie for a first look at the most talented recruits from 20 local universities.

But at least for this week, the companies have set aside their battle for the top graduates and instead are cooperating on the effort to keep the talent in town.

"We're very concerned about the brain drain. We want to make sure that students are informed," about opportunities to make a living in Boston after college, said Theresa Sjostedt , vice president of human resources at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. , an institutional asset manager that hosted about 30 students for a panel discussion at its downtown headquarters yesterday morning.

The graduate exodus frustrates corporate leaders because those leaving would likely make high salaries and boost the area's tax base. What's worse, they say, is that many are leaving even though there are good jobs available.

Thirty percent of graduates leave the area for better jobs elsewhere, according to the study, but 47 percent leave either because of Boston's exorbitant cost of living, or because they think other cities are just a better place to live.

"To set up a household here is expensive," Sjostedt said. "I think it's just an overarching acknowledgement among companies that it's not in the plus column."

Among Hub Crawl students, feelings about making a living in Boston mirrored findings from the chamber report. But it was unclear whether the program, in its second year, is changing minds among students bent on leaving or worried about Boston's pricey rents and real estate prices.

Chamber officials say the program is too new to track how many participants are still in town and how long they plan on being here. Other programs, though, say they have had success.

The Partnership Inc. , a nonprofit group that works to keep minority professionals in Boston, says 84 percent of its more than 1,300 participants since 1987 are still living in the area.

Lisa Trish , a 22-year-old Bentley College finance major who showed up at Brown Brothers yesterday, said she loves living in Boston compared to her hometown of Hanover, Pa. But she's not enamored with Boston's cost of living.

"I definitely want to stay here, but it's a matter of finding what I want to do," and a job that would afford her a decent life in Boston, she said.

But Jongte Brown , an 18 year-old Fisher College freshman from Brooklyn, N.Y. , said she plans to go back home no matter what.

"I'm looking to leave," said Brown, who came to Bank of America Corp.'s Federal Street headquarters Wednesday morning to hear from its local executives.

"I think there's better jobs in New York. That's where people's careers take off."

Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.