The west isn't necessarily the best
July 18, 2018 6:06 AM   Subscribe

What are higher education deserts? The Chronicle of Higher Education explores where and which Americans are the farthest away from colleges and universities.

The Urban Institute offered a somewhat different approach, combining geography and broadband.

The American Council on Education focused on geography, but used a different model to yield different results.
posted by doctornemo (12 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
From the article: "For our analysis, we excluded institutions with an acceptance rate lower than 30 percent: These colleges wouldn’t be considered viable options by many local students."

I'm not sure that would have changed the results all that much. I'm unaware of any ultra-selective institutions in Wyoming, for example. It would make a handful of the light gray blocks in the northeast white, but that's just quibbling. The larger point, that the rural west is underserved, would still stand, and people like me would not obsess over minutiae.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:31 AM on July 18, 2018


The data set isn't perfect... I live down the road from a branch campus of Georgia State which isn't shown on the map. (Georgia State is shown only at its main campus in downtown Atlanta.) That particular error doesn't affect the conclusion. But I suspect that there are areas where it does, and in particular rural areas would probably look a bit less underserved if all such branch campuses were in the data set in their correct locations.

(But this is a minor quibble. The main conclusion - that rural areas are still underserved - still stands.)
posted by madcaptenor at 6:59 AM on July 18, 2018


While the point about broadband access is an important one, I'm not sure how you could make it much better for those in some rural areas to be geographically closer to colleges given the way populations are spread out in some of the west. I can't really see how you could have functional colleges, as we know them today, that would cover the parts of Montana enough, to go with the example, to lessen the "desert" effect while still having enough of a population to support the institution.

That isn't to say the problem should be ignored, but that this may be yet another instance where the traditional idea of colleges should be questioned as the old model doesn't seem to be working for current needs in a multitude of ways. I can't help but feel there may be greater benefit in rethinking how colleges work and what it is we expect from them since it seems clear the vision of what they are to provide and to whom they are to provide it has radically changed over time.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:11 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I can't really see how you could have functional colleges, as we know them today, that would cover the parts of Montana enough, to go with the example, to lessen the "desert" effect while still having enough of a population to support the institution.

I agree with this in that mostly what they've determined is that colleges roughly match population density, which I don't find very useful. Why 50 miles? The average US commute is 30 minutes, so that would seem more appropriate. A 50 mile daily commute would make your transportation expenses outrageous, inline with tuition. Even at 30 miles though, I'm not sure the data would change much.

Seems like this would be more useful to determine localized (within a metro) college deserts. More like 5-10 miles from various parts of the metro. Farther than 10 miles, and marginalized populations who have to rely on inadequate public transport or questionable quality autos aren't going to be able to regularly make it to class.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:24 AM on July 18, 2018


Rural western people have a somewhat different perception of distance and travel time than people who live in more urban areas. I grew up in a spot in Canada that would have been just on the edge of what they consider a desert -- the nearest college was 57 minutes away, assuming you drove the speed limit to get there, which no one did. (The speed limit has since increased, but I imagine people still exceed it considerably.)

The thing is, the nearest high school was 45 minutes away (same town, but the college was downtown while there was some stuff on the edges nearer to us). So was the nearest doctor, grocery store, bank, etc, etc, etc. So we were already used to driving nearly an hour to do basically anything. Having a place to stay in town in case the roads were bad. Finding places for kids to stay if they needed special services beyond what they could get in the one high school we could be bused to, etc. None of that seemed far or long or unusual to us -- it just was what it was.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:50 AM on July 18, 2018 [8 favorites]


Rural western people have a somewhat different perception of distance and travel time than people who live in more urban areas.

I grew up in a place sort of like that and have a different perspective. In my opinion, it shouldn't be anything but a case study of how much (little) people will accept if that's what they are used to.

It also actually feeds back into the 'college cost & availability' issue because the local government is more than happy to build endless high quality roads to nowhere but discounted schooling is somehow a bridge too far. Farmers & ranchers build roads independent of the government - people don't typically speed down them (unless they are 16 year old boys).
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:20 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I lived in Montana and some other isolated places at times, while the perception of travel/distance thing is certainly real, the thing the article seems to take for granted, or at least not explain well is what they believe geographical coverage is intended to accomplish and how it matches to the populations in higher-ed "deserts.

Having closer colleges seems like a good thing, but without jobs in those areas that require college degrees, the immediacy of access would only be a temporary benefit since once the students graduated most would have to leave the area to make use of those degrees and pay off their debts. The question of whether rural areas are providing strong pre-college education where students might be given a better path to going to college and how college living expenses are funded for non-commuter students seems more important than having colleges within 60 minutes of where one grows up. That some rural/conservative areas often don't value colleges too has some significant bearing on whether potential students would attend. No point in sending a kid to college if you want them to stay near by as adults.

(I also have to question that map in the first link some since it shows some areas, like in Washington for example, that are clearly within an hour drive of a college as being desert areas.)
posted by gusottertrout at 8:44 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


The data set isn't perfect... I live down the road from a branch campus of Georgia State which isn't shown on the map.

I am curious about the data set used. There are definitely more than 1,500 colleges and universities in the US (even when excluding for-profits, which they should). I suspect they missed quite a few satellite campuses, etc.

That said, I wonder if this could be at least partially addressed through low-residency programs. Online-only education doesn't work for everyone (especially without broadband access), and it seems like people living in rural areas could benefit even more than urban/suburban students from the networking possibilities of in-person learning. It seems like low-residency programs, which have a mix of possibly-online work on your own, with in-person class time once a month, or once a quarter, could be a potential solution for some students.
posted by lunasol at 8:45 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


There are definitely more than 1,500 colleges and universities in the US (even when excluding for-profits, which they should).

The article states that it excludes private colleges and universities and those with low acceptance rates (below 30%). In my immediate area for example that means Emory and Georgia Tech are left out. That seems fair - people aren't commuting to those schools.

But spot-checking a bit more, Kennesaw State isn't there. The data is supposedly from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and KSU does show up in that data set, as a public school with a 60%-ish admissions rate. It's not a satellite campus.

Something is amiss here. I suspect geocoding is hard.
posted by madcaptenor at 9:07 AM on July 18, 2018


That isn't to say the problem should be ignored, but that this may be yet another instance where the traditional idea of colleges should be questioned as the old model doesn't seem to be working for current needs in a multitude of ways.

Living on or near a college campus is something people have done literally since the start of the higher education system. It has a ton of benefits for everyone, including both students and the educational institutions themselves. If dorms or apartments are too expensive, that’s one thing, but I’m not convinced that college itself is at fault.

I worry that these sorts of concerns are turning college into a version of high school. If there’s anything we should be questioning, it’s that.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:12 AM on July 18, 2018


The Chronicle data is hinky. In the closer look at Montana they note the location of community colleges. That gives the impression that they include those in the larger map, but there is no way that they do.

If you zoom in on Florida, for example, there are a lot of missing institutions. They have Panama City as a desert but Gulf Coast State College (a CC) is in Panama City and there is an FSU extension center there. It's clearly not a desert. They definitely missed other CC's in the state (including mine!).
posted by oddman at 12:01 PM on July 18, 2018


Agree that the Chronicle's data set is flawed. They show a lot of the Texas-Mexico border to be an education desert, but with Laredo Community College and Texas A&M International University in Laredo, plus Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, Del Rio, and Eagle Pass (which teams up with Sul Ross's Rio Grande College to offer bachelor's and master's degrees) as well as several colleges and universities in Harlingen/McAllen/Brownsville area, there really shouldn't be much of the border that's not within an hour of a college. Some, yes, but not nearly as much as their map shows.

So...this is a good start, but I'd love to see a truly accurate map. I think they could crowd-source it and get it done pretty efficiently if they wanted to.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 1:08 PM on July 18, 2018


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