What makes a city abundant and productive? Well, one thing is for sure, cities need college graduates. Unfortunately, Dayton, Ohio is in such short supply of these kinds of people. Only 24% of the adult population of this place has four-year college degrees. This is quite alarming since the average American metro areas should have at least 32 percent. This can be blamed with the rich manufacturing past of the city. Most of the people do not need a college degree for a well-paying job.
Because of this, the aim for a higher educational attainment has decreased. Although a higher educational attainment is necessary for the success of the national economy, people on Dayton don’t seem to mind this fact. For quite a long time, this place and the people in it became wealthy, neglecting the need for education. They saw the warning signs, but they chose to ignore these warnings.
Dayton actually sits on a place where there is a divide among American cities. There are a small number of areas where there is a pool of college graduates. But most of the areas here are struggling to keep these graduates.
The lucky metro areas that have about 40 percent of people who have college degrees are Raleigh, San Francisco and Stamford. The first one, Raleigh, is considered as a large technology sector and there are a number of great research universities around. As for San Francisco, there is a steady flow of college graduates for years now. On the other hand, the Stamford has attracted many white-collar professionals, as well as highly educated workers.
However, there are also metro areas where the number of college graduates is decreasing. These include Bakersfield, Lakeland, and Youngstown, Ohio. Less than a quarter of the adult’s population has earned their college degrees. These metro areas are definitely being left behind. There is a clear sign that college graduates are moving to other places, places where other college graduates reside.
Enrico Morettie, an economist of the University of California, said that this is one of the most important developments in the history of the United States, especially when it comes to employment and the economy. This person recently published his book entitled, “The New Geography of Jobs”.
According to the history of America, most cities have almost the same share on the number of college graduates in the past, partly because only few people back then went to college. They say that knowledge breeds knowledge. This is somehow both a bad thing and a good thing since there are quite a number of places which are being left out.
Why are these things important? Well, for one, education plays an important role in the lifestyle of most people. In research, college graduates actually live longer, earn more household income, have decrease incidence of divorce and decrease numbers of living as a single parent, and a lot of other positive outcomes. Hopefully, this issue about the percentage of college graduates from one metro area to another will be resolved soon.
