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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

#61

Post by spamizbad »

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…

For those not in poverty what you describe is -- indirectly -- a feature not a bug

Schools are disappearing because there is no tax base to support them, and the remaining residents tend to favor an austere government. There's also a degree of distrust of governmental organizations. There are a lot of small towns where, if the state government came in and said "We're going to build you a school for free and you won't have to pay for anything" there would be a lot of belly-aching about how the bus traffic would increase wear-and-tear on roads, causing more roadwork, raising taxes.

My father lives in rural Wisconsin. Every political season, there's a wave of people running for office trying to reduce the county's tax burden from the 2nd smallest to the 1st smallest in the state, by basically completely gutting what already meager community amenities are provided. Each year they get closer to sweeping the county elections.

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

#62

Post by BrooklynRage »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #58
thomastjeffery wrote: post #57

If you live in a city, you can likely attend a college from your parents' house. For those of us in rural areas, that is not even remotely true. If you intend to attend college, but live in a rural area, you have to prepare for all the expenses of living on your own, on top of quickly rising college expenses. You need a place to live, a budget for food, possibly even transportation. There is also a general wealth dis…

Many colleges have a 'parietal rule' where Freshmen must live in a dorm. So maybe not so different.

Most public schools have a commuter option that lets you get out of that requirement if you can prove residency somewhere nearby.

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

#63

Post by threatofrain »

Slansitartop wrote: post #24
forkLding wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But college costs the same for everyone. On average, I see more expensive cars in the Bay Area than I do in my home state. I suspect that's because they're proportionally cheaper to someone who can afford to live there.

Living expenses trump cost of college, IMO, especially if you are a needy person. Needy people can get great assistance, even if they don't know where to get it.

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

#64

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

ryanobjc wrote: post #55
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…

So, what you're saying is that, apart from buying goods and services from rural areas, that the rest of the countryside should somehow assist, with tax money, the rural citizens? Strange that you'd say that, from a population historical of voting for anti-tax candidates. Perhaps not you personally. In other words, you'd like to socialize the downsides of living in remote areas of the country?

>So, what you're saying is that, apart from buying goods and services from rural areas, that the rest of the countryside should somehow assist, with tax money, the rural citizens?

Yes.

>Strange that you'd say that, from a population historical of voting for anti-tax candidates.

They're stuck in a two-party system where one side looks down their nose at rural voters and their values and the other sides looks just down their nose at rural voters.

>In other words, you'd like to socialize the downsides of living in remote areas of the country?

The wording here makes it seem like what's happening in rural areas is just a consequence of nature but it's not, it's tied in with all sorts of policy decisions we've made over decades, making new policy decisions to fix that seems reasonable to me. Here's a really great article on the issue: https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2015/bloom-and...

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

#65

Post by tcoff91 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #60
ryanobjc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what you're saying is that, apart from buying goods and services from rural areas, that the rest of the countryside should somehow assist, with tax money, the rural citizens? Strange that you'd say that, from a population historical of voting for anti-tax candidates. Perhaps not you personally. In other words, you'd like to socialize the downsides of living in remote areas of the country?

Not so. The state takes our taxes and runs the schools. The rural areas get little funding for their schools, even for the same size school (the same tax base approximately). No, its city folks voting all the money to their schools. Its democracy, but its not pretty.

Schools are funded largely by local property taxes in most parts of the US, which is why rural areas have less funding for schools. Schools of equivalent sizes rural vs urban absolutely do not have the same property tax revenue.

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

#66

Post by axaxs »

IntronExon wrote: post #45
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. The first claim seems unlikely, unless that’s 30 minutes at the speed of sound. I’d need solid citations to bite. The second seems unlikely as well, and given how bad response times can be in disadvantaged parts of cities, I’d wonder i…

I don't have a solid citation, apologies. But remember 4 of the top 10 cities are in the, landwise, mostly uninhabited Texas and Arizona. It's not a stretch to drive out of the city and lose access to broadband. I'm in a top 30 city and absolutely driving 30 minutes away takes broadband off the plate...depending on direction(south and west do, north and east dont).

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

#67

Post by js2 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #60
ryanobjc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what you're saying is that, apart from buying goods and services from rural areas, that the rest of the countryside should somehow assist, with tax money, the rural citizens? Strange that you'd say that, from a population historical of voting for anti-tax candidates. Perhaps not you personally. In other words, you'd like to socialize the downsides of living in remote areas of the country?

Not so. The state takes our taxes and runs the schools. The rural areas get little funding for their schools, even for the same size school (the same tax base approximately). No, its city folks voting all the money to their schools. Its democracy, but its not pretty.

Not sure where you live, but in the states I've lived, it's the county or municipality that uses property taxes and runs the K-12 schools. Public universities are are subsidized by the state, but those are available equally to all of the state's residents.

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

#68

Post by stevenwoo »

spamizbad wrote: post #61
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…

For those not in poverty what you describe is -- indirectly -- a feature not a bug Schools are disappearing because there is no tax base to support them, and the remaining residents tend to favor an austere government. There's also a degree of distrust of governmental organizations. There are a lot of small towns where, if the state government came in and said "We're going to build you a school for free and you won't…

The little town in Texas that voted to put libertarians in charge is a decent cautionary tale. https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-frees...

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

#69

Post by ghaff »

KamBha wrote: post #59
hueving wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can you really complain that you're not receiving benefits from systems that are more optimal when people are clustered together Yes. Society should always be doing more than what is cost optimal. Cities are only being focused on right now naturally because that's where the rich people are. It wasn't that long ago that inner cities were quite poor and there were people making excuses like you for not investing in th…

While I agree that the more investment is probably required in rural areas, I think your assertion that the reason why rural areas are being under funded is incorrect. Reality is that more people now live in urban areas[1]. Democracy being what it is, most funding goes to the majority - which are in the city. Add to that that setting up this infrastructure is often not cost effective for a private business (due to a…

Note however that the census definition of "urban" is very broad. I live in a 7,000 population town and between myself and a few neighbors, we're on about 100 acres--not counting adjacent conservation land. We're urban according to the census.

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

#70

Post by hateduser2 »

lugg wrote: post #53
johnny313 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the more telling statistic was a bit further into the article: "Forty-two percent of people ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in all of higher education, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but only 29 percent of rural people in that age group are enrolled, compared with nearly 48 percent from cities."

Is that people from rural areas or just people in rural areas? Because less people in higher education in rural areas shouldn't suprise anyone. People generally move or commute to cities for higher education and that isn't really news. So depending what those numbers really mean could be significant.

Whether or not it’s surprising is kind of besides the point no? It’s still a problem and to get it fixed the first step is to draw attention to it.
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