Which four-year degree programs at each University of Hawaiʻi campus have the lowest shares of graduates remaining in Hawaiʻi five and ten years after graduation?
Workforce Understory Episode: Episode Two — Understanding Underemployment
Geography: Statewide
Topic: Graduate retention, job quality, campus outcomes, and connection to place
The takeaway
Across UH campuses, many of the four-year programs with the lowest graduate-retention rates are concentrated in science, technology, mathematics, interdisciplinary, and broad liberal-arts fields.
At UH Mānoa, Philosophy and Religious Studies has the lowest five-year retention rate at 34%, followed by Physical Sciences at 39%. By year ten, Physical Sciences has the campus’s lowest reported retention rate at 37%.
At UH Hilo, Philosophy and Religious Studies and Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies each retain only 20% of graduates at year five. By year ten, Computer and Information Sciences falls to 13%.
UH West Oʻahu’s lowest-retention field is Liberal Arts and General Studies, at 39% in both years five and ten. At UH Maui College, the sole four-year program shown—Business—retains 20% of graduates at year five and 12% at year ten.
Several of the programs least likely to retain graduates prepare students with highly transferable skills that may connect more readily to opportunities outside Hawaiʻi than to clearly defined careers within the state.
What this visualization shows
This visualization identifies the four-year degree programs at each UH campus with the lowest shares of graduates remaining in Hawaiʻi five and ten years after graduation.
At UH Mānoa and UH Hilo, several of the lowest-retention programs are in fields whose career pathways may require graduate education, specialized research institutions, or industries that are relatively limited in Hawaiʻi.
Physical Sciences appears among the lowest-retention fields at UH Mānoa at both five and ten years. Computer and Information Sciences becomes UH Hilo’s lowest-retention program by year ten, with only 13% of graduates remaining in the state.
These fields develop skills that can be valuable across many labor markets. Their graduates may therefore have access to a much broader national set of employers, occupations, research institutions, and career-advancement opportunities.
Philosophy and Religious Studies and Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies show a somewhat different challenge. The skills associated with these degrees may be applicable across many occupations, but the connection between the program and a specific local career may be less visible to students and employers.
The UH West Oʻahu and UH Maui College results should be interpreted with additional care. Because those campuses report relatively few four-year programs in this comparison, the same fields may appear on both the highest- and lowest-retention lists. Small graduating cohorts may also cause retention percentages to shift substantially when only a few graduates stay or leave.
Why this matters
Hawaiʻi regularly emphasizes the importance of developing more workers with scientific, technical, analytical, and digital skills.
But producing graduates with those skills does not ensure that they will find careers here.
Graduates in Physical Sciences, Mathematics, Computer and Information Sciences, and related fields may encounter a local economy with relatively few specialized employers, research facilities, technology firms, or clearly defined advancement pathways. Their skills may be in demand, but that demand may exist primarily outside Hawaiʻi.
In that situation, low retention does not necessarily indicate that an academic program is performing poorly. A program may educate students effectively while preparing them for a labor market that Hawaiʻi has not yet developed at sufficient scale.
This creates an important connection between workforce and economic-development strategy.
Expanding STEM education without strengthening the industries, research infrastructure, employers, and career pathways that can absorb graduates may increase the number of highly skilled people Hawaiʻi ultimately loses.
At the same time, not every low-retention program reflects the same problem. Broad and interdisciplinary degrees may require stronger career navigation and employer communication so that students can translate their skills into local opportunities. Other fields may depend on graduate education that is not available in Hawaiʻi.
The appropriate response therefore depends on understanding what graduates do after leaving.
This evidence invites Hawaiʻi to ask:
Are Hawaiʻi’s graduates leaving because their skills are more valuable elsewhere—or because local employers have not yet created enough ways for them to contribute here?
Evidence:
Questions this visualization helps answer
Which programs have the lowest five-year retention rates at UH Mānoa, UH Hilo, UH West Oʻahu, and UH Maui College?
Which fields continue to show low retention at year ten?
Are science and technology programs especially likely to lose graduates over time?
Which programs show persistently low retention across both measurement periods?
How do low-retention fields differ among campuses?
How does the number of reported programs affect the campus comparisons?
Curiosity:
Questions this visualization raises
Are graduates in Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer and Information Sciences leaving because their skills command higher wages elsewhere?
Does Hawaiʻi have enough employers and specialized positions for STEM graduates?
Which industries would need to grow to create stronger local destinations for these workers?
Are UH Hilo Computer and Information Sciences graduates moving to Oʻahu or leaving Hawaiʻi entirely?
What explains the 13% ten-year retention rate for that program?
Are graduates leaving immediately, or only after gaining several years of local work experience?
How many graduates in Physical Sciences leave to pursue advanced degrees unavailable in Hawaiʻi?
Do they return after completing graduate or professional education?
What occupations do Philosophy and Religious Studies graduates enter?
Are employers recognizing the analytical, communication, and reasoning skills associated with liberal-arts and interdisciplinary programs?
Could stronger career navigation help graduates connect broad degrees to local occupations?
Why does Liberal Arts and General Studies remain at 39% retention at both five and ten years at UH West Oʻahu?
Why does UH Maui College’s Business program retain only 12% of graduates by year ten?
How much do small graduating cohorts affect the unusually high or low percentages shown?
Why do some programs appear on both the highest- and lowest-retention lists at campuses reporting relatively few programs?
How do wages compare between graduates who remain in Hawaiʻi and those who leave?
Which low-retention programs nevertheless produce strong economic outcomes?
Are graduates being pulled away by opportunity, pushed out by local conditions, or responding to both?
What regional economic-development investments could help Hawaiʻi retain more technically skilled graduates?
Which fields should Hawaiʻi prioritize for stronger university-employer partnerships, internships, research opportunities, and early-career pathways?
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