PROVIDENCE — In looking to plug the incessant drain that happens each spring when newly minted college graduates flee Rhode Island for bigger metropolises, this state might do well to take a lesson from Philadelphia, experts say.

Back in the 1990s, the City of Brotherly Love struggled with that image. Its universities were first rate and attracted students from around the world, but after graduation, the vast majority of those youngsters took flight for places like New York and Chicago.

It wasn’t that anything was wrong with Philadelphia; it just didn’t have enough to keep them there.

The city vowed to right that trend. By early this decade, it had created a regional student retention program that focused on attracting bright students, getting them interested in the local job market and working to keep them once they’d earned their degrees.

A big piece of that equation involved the launch of a structured internship collaborative. A group called Campus Philly helps students connect with employers and acts as clearing house for available internships to increase the number of students working off campus.

“Statistics say the more students you get engaged in internships as early as you can, the higher retention rate you’re going to have because they know the businesses and they get more comfortable with the work environment within that community,” said Richard Bendis, founding president and chief executive officer of Innovation America, a public private partnership that worked on the Philadelphia project.

By 2008, Campus Philly had placed thousands of bright students in work programs. Not coincidently, it also vaulted itself to the top of several lists of best cities in America for young grads.

Rhode Island officials say they hope the Providence region can follow Philadelphia’s lead, crafting a concrete solution to help address a decades-old problem.

“We’re looking to use Philly as a template for building on our strengths,” Daniel P. Egan, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island, said at a “knowledge retention symposium” held Friday at Brown University and sponsored by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s “Innovation Providence” program.

In the coming weeks, Egan’s group will begin work on a blueprint for a Rhode Island collaborative that focuses on internships, mentoring programs and other retention initiatives. The goal is to roll out the early pieces of that plan within days.

But in a panel discussion during Friday’s symposium, young entrepreneurs and current students stressed that while jobs are critical, the state must not underestimate the personal side of where graduates settle: the importance of social outlets, friendships and even the opportunity for romance.

Statistics indicate that these factors matter. Bendis cites figures that show 64 percent of college graduates select a location to move to before they choose a job.

Brown University senior Libby Kimzey said the city of Providence, like Philadelphia, must convince students that they’ll actually like living in Providence. If they succeed in that, certain students will gravitate to the idea of “build[ing] their character in a small pond,” she said.

Providence College President the Rev. Brian J. Shanley, AICU chairman, told the crowd that it’s imperative that Rhode Island proactively stem the well-worn exodus to larger cities.

cneedham@projo.com