“It’s not that rural students aren’t academically prepared. They score better on the National Assessment of Educational Progress than urban students and graduate from high school at a higher percentage than the national average … Yet even the highest-income white students from rural areas are less likely to go to college right from high school than their well-off white city and suburban counterparts.” The Atlantic: The Rural Higher-Education Crisis.

+ Does it really matter if someone goes to college? Well, on one hand, Americans who go to college are four times better off than everyone else. On the other hand, higher education alone isn’t necessarily the key to a good income. (In other words, you need a PhD to figure out whether or not you need higher education.)