Maui’s youth hope to come back after graduation. Will the economy let them?

LAHAINA — Kuola Watson and Kaulana Tihada are so close that they often finish each other’s sentences. 

They remember chasing each other’s dogs as children growing up in the Hawaiian Homes neighborhood near the Lahaina Civic Center. They literally grew up on the field at Sue Cooley Stadium, often spending more time there in a day as youngsters than they did at home.

The pair of Lahainaluna High School seniors are just days away from graduation and a future that they are steadfast in spending in West Maui — despite the deadly Aug. 8 wildfire that leveled Tihada’s home but spared Watson’s place just seven doors down the street. 

“I definitely want to come back to Maui,” Tihada said. “When I was growing up a lot of my uncles and just the community alone, they supported me as I grew up, and I just want to come back and give back my share.”

Students like Watson and Tihada are graduating at a time when median home prices on Maui are $1.3 million and thousands of Lahaina families struggle with displacement. They’re at the crossroads of some big choices that could keep them on Maui or send them to the Mainland for the long haul. And while some insist that they’ll be back, they’re well aware of the cost. 

“The wildfires impacted the entire island, right? Our resources, specifically the housing,” said Leka Anitema, a Baldwin High School alum who grew up in Lahaina and is now a post-high school counselor at Maui High. “What we’re finding is students are having to move more often. And when you move it takes away from your schooling, from your focus. … At any grade level what we’re seeing is that they’re very aware of the economics of Maui. There’s just no hiding from it.”

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?

Aika Swanson is only a sophomore at Maui High, but she’s already mapping out her post-graduation path. Swanson is a state champion swimmer who will carry a 4.0 GPA into her junior year as a Saber. She has NCAA Division I college swimming in mind, with an eye on being a contractual lawyer.

“I think about my future plans almost every single day,” said Swanson, standing at the edge of Kokua Pool earlier this month. “I really like the idea of being a lawyer. I love reading, I love, just like, learning and education in general. I want to get pretty high up in education, not exactly like a prestigious Ivy League school — that’d be great, but I really like Pepperdine as a college option. My dad went there.”

Swanson sees herself perhaps living on the Mainland after college. 

“Realistically, I don’t see myself working and living here in the future, just because it’s getting quite difficult, with inflation and in general, it’s getting harder to just live here,” Swanson said. “But it’d be a dream to live here, that’s the goal really, but I don’t know. I will see where life takes me.”

Holding on to homegrown talent has long been a concern for Hawai‘i leaders, not only for the economy — which has lost out on an estimated $185 million in tax revenues due to outmigration since 2020, the state’s Taxation Department said — but also for the community, as the population has declined and more Native Hawaiians are now living on the continental U.S. than in the islands themselves, according to Census Bureau data. 

Those leaving tend to be younger and higher educated, a 2021 report by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism showed. The draws? More jobs — particularly in science, technology, engineering and math — as well as higher personal income and lower housing costs. While multigenerational households and combined incomes help offset the mortgage or rent, “those who want to live by themselves (with just their spouse and own children) might not be able to afford doing so in Hawai‘i,” the report said.

In fact, the pool of households who can afford a median single-family home in Hawai‘i has shrunk from 44 percent to 20 percent over the past three years, according to a report released this week by the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization.

Anitema believes the main factor pushing people away “is always going to be the economics,” but also points out that students are entering a world where technology and social media are opening more opportunities than their parents may have had.

“And so they’re a little bit more independent, is what I feel, to go out and explore the world,” Anitema said. “I think for those who … remain where they end up, I don’t think it’s that they don’t want to come back to Maui. I think there’s just a lot of doors that unfortunately have closed intermittently just due to different flows in the economics.”

Anitema says post-high school expectations have shifted, and Maui High wants to help students develop “transferable skills” that could apply to any path they choose, even if that’s not college. They bring in guest speakers with local and off-island connections and arrange their schedule so students have the option to hold a job while attending school.  

“Wherever students want to go, whether it’s five miles down the road or 5,000 miles down the road, we want them to feel a sense of community,” Anitema said. “We want them to feel like regardless of where my dream needs me to go, there’s always a route and a way back.”

Senior Haylee Pruse hopes her path leads back to the islands. She calls herself a “lifer” at Kamehameha Schools Maui, where she has attended school for 13 years, kindergarten through her senior year. She was student body vice president, class song leader and leader of the Hawaiian ensemble at KSM. 

“I can’t imagine living anywhere else,” Pruse said on a sunny afternoon at the Upcountry campus earlier this month. “I plan to work in conservation and work in forestry and protecting our natural resources, especially on Maui, but I hope to help all around Hawai‘i.”

Pruse is set to play volleyball at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and major in environmental studies — a passion that grew even stronger after the wildfires raised issues over land and water use. She believes it’s essential to help young people, especially Native Hawaiians, find ways to live on Maui. 

“A big portion of everybody leaving is the money,” she said. “The cost of living here has gone through the roof. I mean, the comparison of what my parents bought their property for compared to what I would maybe buy something now is completely out of proportion. The income that we have doesn’t match how much it costs to live here and a lot of us, we get by, but when there’s people coming in here that have twice the amount of money from the Mainland who want to buy our properties and locals can’t do anything, what are we supposed to do? 

“So, we’re kind of being pushed out, but at the same time we need to start making it a priority to stay here, and for some people that may not be possible. And I think that’s just really sad.”

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

On the street where Watson and Tihada grew up, the fire has split the neighborhood in two — one side where the homes look virtually untouched, and another where properties are mostly reduced to rubble and concrete posts after months of cleanup.

Tihada found out two days after the fire that his house was gone, along with both of his grandmothers’ homes. His mom went to the sites and sent him pictures before he and his dad went to see it for themselves. 

“Seeing my house, it was very heartbreaking, but we just try to stay positive throughout the whole experience and just stay with the family,” said Tihada, who is currently living in Kahoma Village.

For Watson, finding out his home was still standing was somewhat surreal. Rumors were flying about what had burned, and “you couldn’t tell who to trust,” he said. While the Watson home is still livable, the Lahainaluna senior is living with his grandfather in Napili. 

Rather than driving them out, the fire has solidified the lifelong friends’ desire to return to Maui. Both Tihada and Watson agree that the Mainland isn’t for them. They can’t imagine being away from their families, from the ocean.

“Just seeing all that heartbreak and seeing what was lost in that fire and seeing how that affected all of the community, you just want to help them, help them out because me and him know that we wouldn’t be here without the community and all those people who helped us,” Tihada said in an interview alongside Watson on their campus earlier this month. “So, all you want to do is just do the best for them and do the best for the future generation.”

“Kaulana said it perfect,” Watson added. “I mean, it was always the plan to come back and try to build the community and kind of have a legacy like our parents, like our dads and our grandparents. It was always that I was going to come back, help out the community.”

Tihada and Watson both plan to attend UH-Mānoa after UH announced it would cover up to four years of tuition at any of its campuses for the 2024 class of Lahainaluna seniors. Both boys followed in their fathers’ and brothers’ footsteps playing football for the Lunas, and each plans to walk on to the UH football team in the fall.

Watson said the tuition offer is a huge step in the right direction to helping Lahaina heal through the continued development of its young people.

“That means the world to us,” he said. “It’s never heard of, it’s rarely heard that people get free tuition, let alone like all the seniors of a whole school. So, we’re just so grateful. We’re just going to take this opportunity and use it to the best.”

Watson plans to become a firefighter, a natural path for him after spending much of his childhood at the fire station where his stepfather worked.

“Helping out the community, protecting everybody I love, sounds like a pretty good job,” he said.

Tihada wants to become an electrical engineer and return home eventually, though he agrees “the cost is very high.” 

“It’s very hard especially for locals to try to find a place for live,” Tihada said. “So yeah, hopefully we have more affordable housing. Hopefully the local government starts to build more for mainly the locals, especially the people who need it. … I need it.”

*This story is Part 1 in a limited series called “Crossroads” that takes a look at how last year’s wildfires and the high cost of living are affecting young people’s decisions to leave or stay in Maui County.