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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

#111

Post by felipemnoa »

forapurpose wrote: post #102
QuarterReptile wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just going to point out regarding schools: if you let the state come build it for you, you're probably going to get a big, deadly dumpster fire of a school. It'll be a regional consolidated school so they can put a huge educational campus all in one place. It'll be far from any town because that's where the land is cheap. Everyone will have to choose between driving their kids to school or putting them on hour-lo…

> if you let the state come build it for you, you're probably going to get a big, deadly dumpster fire of a school An interesting theory, but many of the top universities in the world are state universities: Berkeley, UCLA, U. of Michigan, U. of Washington, and (if Wikipedia is accurate and I understand it correctly) ETH-Zurich, University College London and University of Toronto are all top 25 global universities.[0…

I believe he was talking about high school education or less. State Universities are a different beast.

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

#112

Post by hermitdev »

arcticfox wrote: post #106
hermitdev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on where you are. I think your impression that most universities are in small towns is an apt description of midwestern universities (i.e. states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, etc). It doesn't hold for either the west or east coast, really. See U of Washington, U of Oregon, Oregon State, state schools of California, state schools of New York, etc, etc. Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but…

> U of Oregon, Oregon State ... Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. What? I'm from Oregon... Eugene (UO) is population 166k, Corvallis (OSU) is 57k. Portland is like 3x bigger than both combined. And UW fits your point, but WSU is so far in the middle of nowhere that it's practically in Idaho.

Eugene would be the largest city in Montana, ND, SD or Wyoming, for example. What constitutes a "large" city is largely shaped by perspective. Corvallis would likewise be one of the larger cities in most "fly-over" states.

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

#113

Post by dsfyu404ed »

forapurpose wrote: post #87
CardenB wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that rural high school grads are way more likely to drop out.

That would be the same problem that other students from less educated communities have. I've many times read of research saying that they feel culturally isolated at college, and also at home where few share their experience and many question their decision to go to college. Many drop out.

> I've many times read of research saying that they feel culturally isolated at college, and also at home where few share their experience and many question their decision to go to college. Many drop out

You hit the nail on the head.

People will put up with that environment if there's something in it for them. If you come from somewhere where a college degree isn't of visible utility and most people don't have one you're not gonna put up with it if you have to also go into debt for it.

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

#114

Post by dsfyu404ed »

bllguo wrote: post #86
thomastjeffery wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the world focus on cities? Those who are born and raised in rural areas can't just uproot their lives the moment they turn 18 and start to afford, or even enjoy city life. Because the commute is closer? It's still at least as slow in many places, because of traffic problems generated by tighter clusters of people. The idea that cities are the most optimal is an idea, not a proven fact. Your experience may…

because it's more efficient? The services will help more people because of population density. I mean, the math is obvious. I'm not sure what the argument is. Nobody is saying city folk are more important. There are simply more of them.

>The services will help more people because of population density.

You're assuming a centralized distribution model and that the overhead of centralization is more than made up for with economics of scale.

edit: is that not the implied assumption?

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

#115

Post by lugg »

hateduser2 wrote: post #70
lugg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's the problem?

I guess you could argue that in today's world you shouldn't have to move to a city to get a higher education.

But the truth is, even with improved remote offerings students will still flock to larger cities for their higher education.

The people remaining either don't want, need, or can achieve higher education and I don't see any problems with that.

This all assumes the stat is talking about people in rural areas vs people from rural areas.

I would be concerned if people from rural areas had largely less percentage points of higher education, but only if it was a very large gap.

Community and local bias toward lesser rates of higher education is expected. Both from the "my dad was a farmer, I'm a farmer too" stereotype and also the fact that income disparity/inequality between city living and rural living would result in a substantial gap when education costs are the same across the board.

That last point is something I have a problem with but honestly the attitude towards education spending in USA from the majority is very one sided. (My taxes shouldn't fund your fancy degree when I work in a factory - regardless of societal benefit I constantly receive.)

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

#116

Post by vanilla_nut »

jacobolus wrote: post #109
vanilla_nut wrote: post #43

As a graduate of a very rural American school (to give you an idea, my entire pre-k through 12th grade school was housed in a single building, with below 500 kids total; my graduating class was just over 30 students, and I was one of 3 who went on to a 4-year school -- fewer than 10 of us went to any college at all)... this article isn't very good. Like some other commenters have pointed out, the author failed to int…

On the other hand some of my friends who grew up in rural areas grew up making tree forts and complicated mechanical gadgets, welding metal junk into weird sculptures, blowing things up with increasingly powerful homemade explosives, or wandering around in the forest studying local insects, etc. The available “enriching experiences” are just a different sort than those available in a big city. Higher population densi…

Depends on the level of isolation and the person's need for socialization, I'd say. Most of that stuff is perfectly possible in a small town where kids can walk to school, bike to each other's houses, and grow up together with neighbor kids. In my case, I remember playing around with that kind of stuff but it's difficult (and dangerous, depending on who you ask) for a kid to grow up alone, isolated from other children. I'm not advocating for every kid to grow up in Manhattan -- I just think every kid should have the chance to make friends and experience childhood with those friends on their own terms. It's not very conducive for a kid to have to beg Mom or Dad to drive them every time they want to see a friend, and while the Internet/phones allow kids to play video games and chat with each other, I don't think we'll ever reach feature parity with reality.

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

#117

Post by lugg »

hermitdev wrote: post #112
arcticfox wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> U of Oregon, Oregon State ... Sure, they might be in smaller cities, but larger cities than most states even have. What? I'm from Oregon... Eugene (UO) is population 166k, Corvallis (OSU) is 57k. Portland is like 3x bigger than both combined. And UW fits your point, but WSU is so far in the middle of nowhere that it's practically in Idaho.

Eugene would be the largest city in Montana, ND, SD or Wyoming, for example. What constitutes a "large" city is largely shaped by perspective. Corvallis would likewise be one of the larger cities in most "fly-over" states.

For clarification I just assumed that if you could support a modern University attendence you by definition had a population density that far exceeds what I would call rural. (Next house miles away)

In other words, small town or city, neither is what I would describe as "rural".

What the study defines as rural would probably cover a lot of small towns I suspect so who really knows.

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

#118

Post by hermitdev »

bllguo wrote: post #86
thomastjeffery wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the world focus on cities? Those who are born and raised in rural areas can't just uproot their lives the moment they turn 18 and start to afford, or even enjoy city life. Because the commute is closer? It's still at least as slow in many places, because of traffic problems generated by tighter clusters of people. The idea that cities are the most optimal is an idea, not a proven fact. Your experience may…

because it's more efficient? The services will help more people because of population density. I mean, the math is obvious. I'm not sure what the argument is. Nobody is saying city folk are more important. There are simply more of them.

Yet, tight population densities also have detrimental environmental effects, such as heat islands, higher levels of noxious gasses, modification or pollution of natural drainage, losses of open green spaces just to name a few.

Rural areas typically don't modify the local drainage (you're not likely connected to a sewer, you have a septic system). They don't become heat islands are there's relatively little pave or concreted. The noxious gasses aren't usually a problem due to lower traffic, usage and density, except in some mountain valleys where you get temperature inversions over winter that trap some of that.

The problems are technological/economical. Getting power is a pain in the ass, yet we've mostly solved that, likewise with traditional phone land-lines. Internet access is abysmal. I get better internet connectivity on my cell phone than my parents can get in their house because local providers won't run cable/fiber because it's too expensive for too few subscribers, but the federal government mandated access to both power & phone and we have those.

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

#119

Post by hermitdev »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #83
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…

Well, we can all be proud that state governments are both handing out disproportionately large sums of money to rural areas and doing so in ways that crushes any notion of cost optimal. This is done, of course, through infrastructure building, in which rural mucipalities beggar themselves to get state matching for road construction they cant afford to spur on unproductive growth that will turn around to bite them wit…

I think you need some citations before your claims can be taken seriously.

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

#120

Post by eric_b »

bllguo wrote: post #86
thomastjeffery wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the world focus on cities? Those who are born and raised in rural areas can't just uproot their lives the moment they turn 18 and start to afford, or even enjoy city life. Because the commute is closer? It's still at least as slow in many places, because of traffic problems generated by tighter clusters of people. The idea that cities are the most optimal is an idea, not a proven fact. Your experience may…

because it's more efficient? The services will help more people because of population density. I mean, the math is obvious. I'm not sure what the argument is. Nobody is saying city folk are more important. There are simply more of them.

I've lived in cities - they typically failed to provide better services than lower density suburbs, despite having a bigger tax base and "efficiencies". There are many reasons for this, but cities do not become magically more efficient or well run with more people. Sadly, the opposite is usually true.

I think you've bought a bill of goods that a certain group of people are selling, without actually having lived it.

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