Rural Education at a Glance

Rural Educational Attainment Continues To Rise Education Increasingly Rewarded in Rural Labor Markets Low Education Levels Challenge Much of Rural America Definitions and sources

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Robert Gibbs

Rural Development Research Report Number 98,
January 2004

Rural Americans today have attained historically high levels of education. In 2000, nearly one in six rural adults had a 4-year college degree, about twice the share of a generation ago. (Over 40 percent have completed at least 1 year of college.) However, rura education still lags urban levels, and large regional and racial differences persist. The South, for instance, with a third of the Nation’s rural population, is home to half of all rural adults who have not completed high school. Rural Hispanics and Blacks are half as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to complete college and at least twice as likely to lack a high school diploma.

The skill requirements of rural jobs continue to rise along with education levels. Although less educated rural adults fared well in the 1990s due to the robust economic expansion, their prospects are uncertain. Many rural jobs historically held by workers with limited education have been lost to changes in production technology, overseas competition, and changing consumer demand. Prospective employers are increasingly attracted to areas offering a concentration of well-educated and skilled workers, just as better educated youth and adults are still drawn to places— often in cities—that offer better jobs with higher salaries. Although investments in education are not a panacea for places struggling to attract jobs and residents, they can be an important part of a broader economic development strategy.

USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) analyzes the ongoing changes in rural areas and assesses Federal, State, and local strategies to enhance economic opportunity and quality of life for rural Americans. This publication provides the latest information on the education-related characteristics of rural workers (age 25 and older) and counties.

Rural Educational Attainment Continues To Rise

Rural Americans have more years of schooling than ever before. The rise in attainment continues a long upward trend, reflecting both universal access to comprehensive public education and a transition from a resource-based economy to one dominated by service employment.

• In 2000, 15.5 percent of nonmetro adults age 25 and older—about one in six—had graduated from a 4-year college, more than double the 1970 rate.
• The share of nonmetro adults without a high school diploma or GED equivalent fell to a historic low of 23.2 percent in 2000.

Urban and nonmetro residents differ in educational characteristics

• The largest gap between metro and nonmetro educational attainment was in college completion—the metro share of 26.6 percent was 11 percentage points higher than the nonmetro share.
• The rural-urban college completion gap is caused largely by lower attendance rates among rural high school graduates compared with urban graduates. The gap is reinforced by the smaller rural share of managerial, professional, and technical jobs that typically require post-secondary degrees. Lower rural demand for highly educated workers encourages both rural and urban youth who complete college to make their homes in urban areas.

The urban-rural gap in educational attainment does not necessarily reflect student achievement

• On average, rural students perform about as well as urban students—with scores slightly above those of central city students and slightly below those of suburban students—on national standardized tests.
• Specialized and advanced course offerings in rural schools are more limited, on average, than in urban schools due to the shortage of appropriately trained teachers and financial constraints. But rural schools often experience closer ties among teachers, parents, and students, fostering a supportive academic environment.

Educational attainment varies sharply by race and ethnicity

• Nonmetro non-Hispanic Whites were at least twice as likely to have a college degree as American Indian, Black, or Hispanic adults.
• Nonmetro Hispanics have the lowest educational attainment— about half had not finished high school in 2000 and only 6.5 percent had completed 4 years of college.
• Metro Blacks were over twice as likely to hold a college degree as nonmetro Blacks—the largest attainment difference among races. Still, education levels among nonmetro Blacks have risen sharply in recent decades. Their high school completion rate rose 12 percentage points between 1990 and 2000.

Educational attainment among younger adults is often viewed as a harbinger of future trends

• Nonmetro adults under 55 have significantly higher levels of education than older
  nonmetro adults, particularly with regard to high school completion.
• But high school and college completion rates are similar across the 25-55 age range, suggesting that the sharpest upswing in educational attainment occurred in the 1960s and moderated in subsequent decades.

Education Increasingly Rewarded in Rural Labor Markets

The labor market rewards to a college degree have greatly increased in the past 20 years. Rural college graduates now make more than twice as much as rural high school dropouts and have far lower unemployment rates. College graduates, however, still earn much more in cities, making it harder for rural counties to build their human capital base.

• Unemployment rates rose for nonmetro workers age 25 and over, regardless of
  educational attainment, between 2001 and 2002, due in part to the effects of the 2001 economic recession. But nonmetro unemployment rates in 2002 remained much higher for those without a high school diploma (8.4 percent) than for college graduates (1.9 percent). Unemployment rates for nonmetro high school graduates and for college attendees without a 4-year degree were at 5 and 3.8 percent, respectively.
• Average weekly earnings for nonmetro college graduates were $782 in 2002, compared with $355 for nonmetro workers who had not completed high school. High school graduates and those with some college experience, but not a degree, earned $438 and $502.
• Earnings for metro college graduates were 12 percent higher than those for nonmetro college graduates in 2002. The earnings gap between metro and nonmetro workers without a high school diploma was just 4 percent.
• Nonmetro adults with at least a 4-year college degree also experience a very low incidence of poverty. They are about a third as likely to be poor (3.5 percent) as nonmetro adults overall. (11 percent). They are one seventh as likely to be poor as those without a high school diploma (23.5 percent).

Low Education Levels Challenge Much of Rural America

Just as urban and rural education levels differ, there is also great variation within rural America. Low education levels pose a challenge for many rural counties seeking economic development. Raising education levels—and the quality of that education—is essential to improving the economic life of rural communities and the well-being of the rural population. The outmigration of rural youth to places with better job opportunities limits the effects of schooling investments on local communities. Still, better schools and outmigration often work together to expand rural youths’ economic horizons.

• Rural high school completion rates vary widely across regions. The bottom quarter ofnonmetro counties (ranked by completion rates) averaged a 65-percent rate, compared with 87 percent for the top quarter. Two thirds of the bottom-quarter counties are in the South, including many central Appalachian counties and those with large minority populations.
• High school completion rates are high along the coastal Northeast, in the western Great Lakes region, the central Great Plains, much of the northern and central portions of the Rocky Mountains, and parts of the Pacific Northwest.
• College completion corresponds closely to the degree of urbanization. High concentrations of college-educated adults can be found in and around the large and medium-size cities of every region. Nonmetro counties with a large share of college graduates are typically sites of large colleges and universities, or other large research facilities. High completion rates are also common throughout much of the Mountain West, the Great Plains, the northwestern Great Lakes region, and upper New England.
• Low education is highly correlated with persistent poverty. The quarter of nonmetro counties with the lowest high school completion rates include two-thirds of all persistent poverty counties. A third of adults in persistently poor counties, on average, lack a high school diploma. Low education levels are associated with a low-wage economy and a less stable labor force. In addition, poor counties lack the tax base and often the social and community capital to invest adequately in better schools, which reinforces long-term economic distress.
• The educational credentials of the workforce increasingly affect local job growth. In 2000, manufacturing still accounted for over a fourth of all nonmetro private sector earnings, anchoring many local economies. As late as the 1980s, manufacturing sought areas of low education, which tend to have lower wages. Yet globalization and new technologies in the 1990s favored areas with higher education levels.