When thinking about where to go to college, many students simply
don’t have the option to consider schools located outside of their own
communities. For place-bound students, many of whom are
“post-traditional” students, postsecondary choices are made according to
proximity to home and work, a new paper finds.
"Education Deserts: The Continued Significance of “Place” in the Twenty-First Century,”
(9 MB PDF) an ACE-commissioned paper authored by Nicholas Hillman and Taylor
Weichman of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, explores how where
students live affects their options for attending college. This is the
first paper in Viewpoints, a series by ACE’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy that will explore pressing issues in higher education.
In examining core-based statistical areas and commuting zones data,
the researchers found that the majority (57 percent) of incoming
freshman attending public four-year colleges and universities enroll
within 50 miles of their permanent home. In fact, the farther a student
lives from an institution, the less likely they are to enroll.
“The current public dialogue around college choice doesn’t take into
account that many students are unable to move long distances to attend
school,” said Louis Soares, ACE’s vice president for policy research and
strategy. “Our own work has shown that the desire to live close to home
has been a consistent factor over the last three decades for students
deciding which college or university to attend, a trend that is
exacerbated for low-income students.”
Attending their local community college might be the only option for
students who live in an “education desert,” defined as a place with
either no colleges or universities located nearby or with one community
college as the only local public broad-access institution. If there are
two community colleges, or if there is a community college and a
broad-access public university, then an area would not qualify as an
education desert because the student has at least one public
postsecondary alternative.
As a result, community colleges enroll more than half of all students
who live in what the authors define as education deserts, the paper
finds.
The private higher education sector, nonprofit and for-profit,
accounts for less than 15 percent of total enrollments in education
deserts. And while online learning may hold promise in certain
educational environments, research has yet to show that distance
learning provides quality equal to or greater than place-based learning.
There are likely to be pockets within education deserts where some
students are served very well by their local institutions and others are
not. However, this paper draws attention to the fact that the
opportunity to attend college varies by geography, especially when
communities do not have the capacity to meet the educational needs of
local residents.
About 13 percent of the total student population attends college in
education deserts, the majority of which are located in the Midwest and
Great Plains states, while the fewest are in the Mid-Atlantic and New
England states.
Most education deserts are in rural and moderately sized communities,
though education deserts also can exist in areas with large flagship
universities, for example, in Lexington-Lafayette, KY, and Columbia, SC.
Because the University of Kentucky and the University of South Carolina
are moderately selective rather than broadly accessible institutions,
prospective students have only one public alternative—a single community
college— if they are not admitted to their flagships, according to the
paper.
Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) play a unique role in expanding
access for students of color residing in education deserts. Across 135
counties, there are 37 MSIs enrolling approximately 327,000 students.
Most of these colleges and universities are Hispanic-serving
institutions, meaning they were not designated by federal statue but
became MSIs through a changing enrollment profile given shifting
demographics in the region.
“Geography will continue to be important for post-traditional college
students, who will struggle to balance work, family and school
responsibilities,” said Hillman. “The purpose of this paper is to ask
questions and to spur dialogue and continued research in this area. We
need an honest, evidence-based conversation about the so-called choices
available to our nation’s students, especially those who live in areas
not flush with educational opportunity.”
The paper recommends additional research in this area and expanding
opportunities in education deserts to ensure students have access to
research, upper-level coursework or academic programs not delivered in
the community college setting. It also advocates that federal and state
policymakers use this new information in policy and research discussions
about college choice and prioritize the role geography plays in shaping
and constraining educational opportunity.