New Research Emphasizes Importance of College Proximity
Johanna Alonso
October 29, 2024
Distance plays an outsize role in students’ academic outcomes, especially for certain minority students, according to two studies out of Texas and California.
Two new studies emphasize the ways geography impacts access to college—and how such impacts can be especially harmful for marginalized students. Together, the studies show that living a significant distance—30 minutes in one study and 25 miles in another—from an institution of higher education is especially likely to prevent Hispanic, Black, low-income and first-generation students from getting a postsecondary education.
One of the two studies, completed by a team of economists from four universities, analyzed the pathways of high school students in Texas to see whether living far from the nearest community college was a barrier for students to enroll in higher education. For white and Asian students, it was just the opposite; living farther from a community college tended to push those students to travel out of their immediate area to attend a four-year institution. But for Hispanic, Black and low-income students, it was more likely to lead them to forgo higher education altogether.
