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Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

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Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#11

Post by jessaustin »

brandmeyer wrote: post #9

"Overall, 59 percent of rural high school grads — white and nonwhite, at every income level — go to college the subsequent fall. That's a lower proportion than the 62 percent of urban and 67 percent of suburban graduates, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, which tracks this." That's not actually all that large of a difference. Its certainly not enough to justify the strong wording in the headline.

Yeah, and this "subsequent fall" thing is misleading at best. It would be more interesting to wait a couple of years to see about the percentages of those who have dropped out and have education debt but no degree to show for it. Is the problem that rural people are less likely to get screwed by the education cartel?

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#12

Post by xor1 »

nugi wrote: post #6

The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds…

California on its own has a huge amount of disparity. I'm only familiar with the SF/Bay/LA/OC/SD bubbles, since that's where I've spent (and continue to spend) my entire life. I can't even name more than a few counties, and I can barely name any cities outside of those counties. The rest of California that isn't bordering any of these regions may as well be another country to me.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#13

Post by bequanna »

nugi wrote: post #6

The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds…

> ... ambulance times are in hours

Where? I live in an very remote part of Northern Minnesota. Even so, worst case ambulance time to most people in my area would be 15-20 mins.

I would argue that an incredibly small portion of the US population lives >1hr from an ambulance or first responder.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#14

Post by forkLding »

watwut wrote: post #7
forkLding wrote: post #3

Theres also the concern if you're not really doing a STEM subject that has high career prospects, its not really worth it to take on student debt from college only to graduate without a stable career. I think this may also be a concern to people from rural areas who can have livable careers without college.

Rural areas tend to be poorest as far as whites go. They are not full of great jobs.

Agreed, however living and housing costs tend to be low, so relatively speaking, with a not-so-great job, can still have a livable career.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#15

Post by BeetleB »

watwut wrote: post #10
VLM wrote: post #4

Fascinating that culturally the author couldn't bring himself to talk to the kids. The only kid he talked to was one of the unusual college attendees. Kind of shocking if you think about it. He repeated a lot of narrative from numerous professional axe grinders, but nothing can really be learned from that. It wasn't a story about the rural kids who don't go to college, it was a story about politicians axe grinding wh…

College grads do better then those who did not went to college - in terms of earnings, home ownership and just about any other stat I have seen. They do worst then grads of previous generation through. The worst off are those who took debt and then dropped out. Picking up grads as argument against college is odd, given that their results are not as bad as results of other demographic groups.

>College grads do better then those who did not went to college - in terms of earnings, home ownership and just about any other stat I have seen.

Seen as an aggregate. It need not be true for subgroups.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#16

Post by jdminhbg »

nugi wrote: post #6

The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds…

Thirty minutes from a major city but ambulances take hours doesn't seem to make a ton of sense.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#17

Post by jdhopeunique »

watwut wrote: post #10
VLM wrote: post #4

Fascinating that culturally the author couldn't bring himself to talk to the kids. The only kid he talked to was one of the unusual college attendees. Kind of shocking if you think about it. He repeated a lot of narrative from numerous professional axe grinders, but nothing can really be learned from that. It wasn't a story about the rural kids who don't go to college, it was a story about politicians axe grinding wh…

College grads do better then those who did not went to college - in terms of earnings, home ownership and just about any other stat I have seen. They do worst then grads of previous generation through. The worst off are those who took debt and then dropped out. Picking up grads as argument against college is odd, given that their results are not as bad as results of other demographic groups.

"College grads do better then those who did not went to college..."

This is simply selection bias or survivorship bias:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

"They do worst then grads of previous generation though"

Again, selection bias. Currently everyone except a limited few are encouraged to go to college therefore the effect of selection bias has weakened over time and current grads don't do as well as grads of generations past.

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#18

Post by Godel_unicode »

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> A third of rural whites, and 40 percent of rural white men, are resigned to believing that their children will grow up with a lower standard of living than they did I always thought this was a given, and am surprised a significant number of people believe otherwise. Aren’t the Baby Boomers the last generation alive today that will on average have a better standard of living than their parents? Starting with Gen X,…

I haven't been able to find an objective measure of standard of living on a generational basis, but according to Pew, people in general believe theirs will be as good if not better than their parents. This contrasts with the belief that rural Americans have.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/07/chapter-4-standard...

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#19

Post by BeetleB »

nugi wrote: post #6

The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds…

>Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing.

I can't speak for school funding, but are you actually suggesting ambulance response times were better in those areas in the past? Or broadband?

Re: Who's Missing from America's Colleges? Rural High School Graduates

#20

Post by skybrian »

ryandrake wrote: post #8

> A third of rural whites, and 40 percent of rural white men, are resigned to believing that their children will grow up with a lower standard of living than they did I always thought this was a given, and am surprised a significant number of people believe otherwise. Aren’t the Baby Boomers the last generation alive today that will on average have a better standard of living than their parents? Starting with Gen X,…

Even if it's true on average, it certainly doesn't need to be true for any given family.
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