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Monday, March 7, 2005
Georgia Isn’t Always Last
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We get a lot of studies dropped on our desks over here. Today, Andrea Jones, who covers colleges, got one from the Atlanta Regional Consortium for Higher Education or ARCHE.
Georgia ranks 37th among states for the percent of residents age 18 to 20 enrolled in college with 28 percent. New Jersey leads the nation with almost 40 percent, followed by California, New York, Connecticut and Maryland. Trailing Georgia are Texas, Utah, Alaska and Idaho. Montana (Who knew?) is ranked last with 21.8 percent. The organization’s source is the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2002 - 2004 population studies.
The report goes onto highlight the rather obvious disadvantages for those without high school and college educations. “More than three-fourths of public assistance goes to citizens with a high school diploma or less,” the report says. “Three out of four Georgians living in poverty have a high school diploma or less.”
Other benefits of a college degree: You get to pay more taxes! (“…People with more education contribute more to the state’s tax base…”)
And this oft-cited statistic: “Dropping out of school can lead to big trouble and big bills to pay. More than two-thirds of Georgia prison inmates never finished high school Last year alone, the state spent more than a half billion dollars on their incarceration.”
ARCHE’s mission is, in part, “to inform civic and business leaders and the general public of the direct and indirect ways in which higher education benefits the Atlanta region and the State of Georgia.”
