Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them

Through the stories of nine rural, first-generation students and their families, Educated Out shows how geography shapes college opportunities, from admission to postgraduation options.

A former third-grade teacher in rural Tennessee, education researcher Mara Casey Tieken watched as her former students graduated high school. She was shocked at how few were heading to college—and none were going to elite four-year schools. These students were representative of a larger national phenomenon: In 2021, 31 percent of rural adults aged twenty-five and older held a postsecondary degree, compared to 45 percent of urban adults, and rural students are especially unlikely to pursue degrees from private, selective schools. Why, Tieken wondered? And what happens to the handful of rural students who do attend elite colleges, colleges that may feel worlds away from home?

Tieken addresses these questions in Educated Out—a study that shows how geography shapes rural, first-generation students’ access to college, their college experiences, and their postgraduation plans and opportunities. Tieken closely follows a group of nine students for their college years and beyond at an elite New England private school that she calls Hilltop. Interviews with these students reveal the critical moments in the students’ educational careers when their rural origins mattered most: when applying to college, she shows how students are hindered by limited college counseling resources. Once on campus, they learn that many of the school’s opportunities are not available to them: they cannot access spring break trips, job networks, or low-pay-but-important internships. These students discover that home and college are very different worlds with different academic, social, and political climates—and, over time, they start to question both. As they near graduation and navigate a job market in which the highest-paying and most prestigious opportunities are located in urban centers, they begin to feel the complicated burden of their schooling: they’ve been “educated out.” Their stories show the costs of college for rural students: If they do not pursue higher education, they lose the opportunity for social mobility; if they do, they face a more permanent departure. These costs are individual, but rural families and communities also suffer—they lose young people with talent and skills.

In addition to advocating for a higher education landscape that truly includes rural students, Tieken critiques a system that requires people to leave their rural homes in search of opportunities. Our current economy depends on inexpensive rural labor. Without meaningful change, some students will have to make the impossible decision to leave home—and far more will remain there, undereducated and overlooked.

Both engaging and accessible, Educated Out presents important and timely questions about rurality, identity, education, and inequality.

Mara Casey Tieken is associate professor of education at Bates College. She is the author of Why Rural Schools Matter, published by the University of North Carolina Press.