Coronavirus in rural America (Part CX): College applications by rural students fall

Farm-to-fork restaurant, Bucksport, Maine
April, 2019
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

Jon Marcus reports for NPR and the Hechinger Report, dateline Bucksport, Maine, population 4,924.  Marcus reports that the online learning environment the coronavirus has compelled is driving a drop in enrollment, but the biggest factor is cost.  

At the flagship campus of the University of Maine, the number of entering in-state students was down 11% this fall, a spokeswoman said. Maine is the nation's most rural state, with more than 60% of its population considered rural.

Until this year, there were indications that rural college-going was increasing. The proportion of rural students going to college rose from 51% in 2011 to 61% in 2016, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, though it has stalled since then. That's the same proportion as urban students, if still fewer than the 67% of suburban high school graduates who go to college.

Now there's worry that this progress may reverse, thanks in large part to Covid-19.

By far the biggest single barrier to college-going among students in rural schools is the price, according to a survey released in September by researchers at universities in Maine, Oregon, Georgia and Alaska. Average household earnings in rural areas are nearly 20% lower than incomes elsewhere, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says. This has also gotten worse as a result of the pandemic, which has shuttered businesses and cost jobs in rural communities already suffering from declines in agriculture and industry.

All of this threatens to widen "the already precarious economies of rural areas and widening their socioeconomic drift from urban and suburban America."

This story is chock full of data from states across the country, but it also features lots of rich local color from Maine.  That local color includes the town's last paper mill, shuttered in 2014, and how its presence--then absence--has driven local youth aspirations.  It also includes "FAFSA parties," where families come together to learn how to complete the financial aid paperwork for college assistance.  

Here's a quote from Bucksport High School Principal Josh Tripp, 

Their overall feeling toward education right now is that they've just been beaten down.  Everything about this year has been harder. Certainly being an election year and seeing so much negativity around forecasts of our future, regardless of what political side you're on — there's just a lot of dim and dreary outlooks.

Here's a recent story from Eric Hoover in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the trends in enrollment along low-income students generally.  And here's a story by him from a year ago regarding college advising (specifically college fairs) for rural students, which reminds me of this op-ed by Claire Vaye Watkins from about sevn years ago, which makes the same big point.