College Completion Rates Rise But Nonmetro Areas
Continue To Lag
Lorin Kusmin
College graduates earn much more than those
without a college education, and college graduates
are more prevalent in metro than nonmetro areas,
which contributes to higher earning levels in metro
locales. Recent data from the Current Population
Survey show that the metro advantage in college
completion rates is growing over time. Between 1996
and 2006, the proportion of prime working-age (25-59)
adults who had completed college rose by roughly
14 percent in both metro and nonmetro areas. However,
because the college completion rate is higher in
metro areas, the absolute size of the metro-nonmetro
gap in college completion rates rose over the 10-year
period.
College completion rates are higher
in metro areas for all major racial and ethnic groups.
Differences in college completion rates across racial
and ethnic groups are large and persistent, but
they do not significantly contribute to widening
the metro-nonmetro gap. Metro areas have higher
concentrations of Asian Americans, who have the
highest college completion rates, and Hispanics,
who have the lowest college completion rates.
College completion rates rose
across all major racial and ethnic groups in both
metro and nonmetro areas between 1996 and 2006.
The rates for Whites grew at a similar pace in both
metro and nonmetro areas, while the rates for Blacks
and Hispanics grew more rapidly in metro areas.
High school completion is also
an important factor in determining earnings, and
again, metro areas have an advantage, but the difference
is much smaller. Between 1996 and 2006, the high
school completion rate rose from 84 percent to 87
percent in nonmetro areas, narrowing the gap with
metro areas, where the rate increased a single percentage
point to 89 percent.
By 2006, high school completion
rates for most racial and ethnic groups were 80
percent or more in nonmetro areas and above 86 percent
in metro areas. However, high school completion
rates for Hispanics remained far lower than for
other groups. In 2006, 62 percent of prime-age metro
Hispanics and just 60 percent of prime-age nonmetro
Hispanics had completed high school, helping explain
the lower average incomes received by Hispanics
in both metro and nonmetro areas.
| This
finding is drawn from . . . |
| Rural
America at a Glance, 2007 Edition,
Lorin Kusmin (ed.), EIB-31, USDA Economic
Research Service, October 2007.
|
|
Download PDF version