Friday, June 28, 2019

The Geography of College Attainment


In the United States geography and race are two of the main determining factors in adult educational attainment. The Center for American Progress has mapped out the levels of college degree attainment in each of the 3,000+ counties in the United States and Puerto Rico. The map reveals the relatively low levels of college attainment in rural locations compared to more urban areas and the racial attainment gap between the adult white population and the Black, Latinx, and Native populations.

The interactive map Those Left Behind visualizes the Overall Attainment Rates and the Racial Attainment Gaps in each county. If you select a county on the map you can view the county's population, the percentage share of adults with a college degree, the percentage of the white population with a degree and the percentage of Black, Latinx, and Native adults with a degree.

The map includes quick links to four counties which the Center for American Progress has picked out as being indicative of some of the geographical and racial patterns affecting educational attainment. These examples highlight the relatively low levels of the rural population who achieve a college degree, compared to the population in more urban areas of the country. It also highlights some of the urban counties where there is a large racial attainment gap, where the percentage of the white population with a college degree is much higher than the Black, Latinx, and Native populations with a college degree.

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