College & Workforce Readiness Report Roundup

Geography Plays Role in College Access

By Catherine Gewertz — February 09, 2016 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The college frenzy obsesses on key hurdles students must clear to snag a spot in a good college: taking tough courses and getting good grades, building an impressive list of extracurriculars, gathering the financial resources to pay the bills. But the simple fact of a student’s street address can be as big a hurdle as any.

A paper released last week explores the dynamics in “education deserts"—areas with fewer colleges and universities—and argues that where students live is a powerful force that can undermine their access to college. Living in an education desert—a place with no four-year colleges or universities nearby and perhaps only one community college—can mean that “geography is destiny” when it comes to college choice, the paper says.

The paper was written by Nicholas Hillman, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Taylor Weichman, a doctoral student there. It’s the first in a series about higher education issues from the American Council on Education’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy.

The authors cite research showing that 57 percent of freshmen in four-year colleges and universities enroll in institutions within 50 miles of their homes, and that the farther students live from a given institution, the less likely they are to enroll.

The study finds the most education deserts in the Great Plains and the Midwest. The two biggest are Kentucky’s Lexington-Lafayette region and South Carolina’s Columbia area.

Education deserts aren’t always defined solely by the physical lack of colleges nearby, the authors add. Those two regions each have a flagship university, but since they are relatively selective, students who aren’t admitted have only one other public option nearby: community college.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the February 10, 2016 edition of Education Week as Geography Plays Role in College Access

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum Reading Instruction and AI: New Strategies for the Big Education Challenges of Our Time
Join the conversation as experts in the field explore these instructional pain points and offer game-changing guidance for K-12 leaders and educators.
Education Webinar The K-12 Leader: Data and Insights Every Marketer Needs to Know
Which topics are capturing the attention of district and school leaders? Discover how to align your content with the topics your target audience cares about most. 

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness Spotlight Spotlight on Career Readiness & Technology
This Spotlight will help you learn about workforce readiness after-school programs, the benefits of virtual work-based learning, and more.
College & Workforce Readiness What's Next for AP? 4 Takeaways From a College Board Official
In a recent interview with Education Week, the head of the Advanced Placement program discussed a variety of priorities and principles.
3 min read
Trevor Packer, head of the College Board’s AP Program speaks at the AP Annual Conference in Seattle, Wash. on July 20, 2023.
Trevor Packer, the head of the College Board’s AP program, speaks at the organization's annual conference in Seattle in July.
Ileana Najarro/Education Week
College & Workforce Readiness Opinion What We Lose With the End of Affirmative Action
My own path to higher education demonstrates the importance of reaching out to students of all backgrounds, writes a Harvard medical student.
David Velasquez
5 min read
Illustration of hands and puzzle pieces.
DigitalVision Vectors / Getty
College & Workforce Readiness What the Research Says Pandemic High School Grads Are Sticking With College. States Want to Make Sure They Finish
Students' college persistence rates are back to what they were before COVID hit.
7 min read
Harvard University freshman Daniela Andrade on campus October 12, 2021 in Cambridge, Mass.
Harvard University freshman Daniela Andrade on campus Oct. 12, 2021, in Cambridge, Mass.
Angela Rowlings for Education Week