Binghamton’s riddle of the sphinx — how to boost the economy by keeping talented Binghamton University graduates who are turned off by the failing economy — is not easily solved, and certainly not new.

But a new group, New York Young Leaders Congress, could be unraveling the quagmire of upstate New York’s “Brain Drain.”

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, rural denizens have been flocking to urban centers. But it wasn’t until recently that groups have tried to focus on the phenomena in central New York, and certainly with not as much zeal.

Catalysts for Intellectual Capital 20/20 (CIC 20/20), a Binghamton-based group which seeks to keep 20 percent of BU’s graduating class in the city by the year 2020, has lofty (perhaps impossible) goals.

But the group’s existence, coupled with that of half a dozen others under the umbrella of YLC, could be the key to revitalizing the area — or at least paying attention to the problem. This league of young New Yorkers will seek to answer one of the state’s most troubling questions: how to keep us, young New Yorkers, living upstate?

Joshua Kay, the founder of CIC 20/20 and a BU student, and Michael Frame, BU’s director of federal relations, have both been appointed to the Congress, but our relation to the endeavor doesn’t end there.

President Lois B. DeFleur and Sen. Hillary Clinton have already tried to incorporate BU into the Southern Tier’s economic development, but it is clearly time that active students take matters into their own hands. BU’s increasing role in City politics (including the physical extension of campus to Downtown Binghamton through the University Downtown Center) and DeFleur’s push for more growth in Binghamton show just how important BU is to Broome County.

In September 2006, DeFleur welcomed Sen. Clinton to speak in the Mandela Room about her initiative, New Jobs for New York. The event focused on entrepreneurial opportunities in New York, and on BU’s growing technology and business development.

Certainly, we are the generation with the most at stake. The increasing cost of living and the dwindling employment opportunities are our concern and should be at the forefront of our minds as we pursue our education in the Southern Tier.

But first we need to change our attitudes about upstate New York. Binghamton has been called a vacuum, a wasteland and a Townie-haven, perhaps — at least sometimes — rightly. But in order to improve the area, we need to improve our perspective on this corner of New York.

As much as we complain about the treatment we get as part-time residents here, Binghamtonians have the right to find fault with the way many BU students blow through Broome County, insulting its shortcomings at every turn. This passive stance, which has become all but a prerequisite of the University, is exactly what the YLC aims to address — and exactly what we should too.