In recent years, there has been a growing body of research examining the effects of college “deserts” (sometimes defined as areas where people live more than 30 minutes’ drive from campus), and that people who live close to a college It was found that the influence was greater. likely to attend. But a new study finds that these higher education deserts are impacting some student groups very differently than others.
of studyexamined a wealth of Texas high school and college data and found that black and Hispanic students, as well as students from low-income families who live more than 30 miles from a public two-year college, are less likely to attend college. It turns out that the chances are much lower. However, white and Asian students living in the same community were slightly more likely to earn a four-year degree than other students in the state. In other words, they seem more likely to move to attend college because there are no two-year options nearby.
“While all students in community college deserts are less likely to earn an associate degree, their alternative enrollment and degree completion outcomes vary widely by race and ethnicity. [socioeconomic status]” the study found. In other words, for low-income and underrepresented minority groups, living near a community college can be an important route to higher education. On the other hand, such proximity may lead other groups of students to attend two-year colleges rather than pursue four-year degrees.
The results are especially important when: More universities struggle to stay opensaid Riley Acton, an assistant professor of economics at Miami University in Ohio and one of the researchers behind the new study.
“Especially when public institutions, like public community colleges, are considering closing or consolidating, or opening new campuses or consolidating campuses, they need to know who is in charge. “We need to be mindful of whether it is true,” she says. Students live close to those different campuses. ”
The researchers also suggest that universities should consider offering transportation options and credits to students living in college deserts. “If you’re in rural Texas and don’t have a car, that’s going to be a very difficult barrier to overcome without some help,” Acton said.
a novel discovery
Black and Hispanic students, on the other hand, are more likely to live in college deserts than students from other groups. Research by Nicholas HillmanHe is a professor of education policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was one of the first researchers to focus on the impact of university location on educational attainment in 2016.
In an interview with EdSurge, Hillman said the implications of Acton’s new study are “very interesting,” and it is perhaps the largest quantitative study to address the question of how college deserts differentially affect different groups. He added that this was a comprehensive study.
“What this makes clear is, ‘Wait a minute, different groups of students have different distances,'” Hillman said.
One thing Hillman has learned is the importance of making the process of transferring from a two-year college to a four-year college smoother. Doing so gives students who live near a two-year college and are likely to start there ample opportunity to attend college. 4 year degree.
Hillman said he turned to geography out of frustration with the Obama administration’s emphasis on providing consumer information about higher education as a solution to college admissions. For example, one major initiative that began during this period was university scorecardprovides information about university choices based on various government datasets.
“The dominant opinion was, ‘If students had better information about where to go to college, more of them would go to college,'” he says. “I said, ‘This is a banana.’ This isn’t going to work.”
He grew up in northern Indiana, and the nearest college is 60 miles away. For those he knew there, information about the university was no barrier to admission. “If I didn’t have a job, I wouldn’t be able to spend this much money on gas to go to college,” he says.
