Giving Compass' Take:

• Ron French reports that Michigan schools are working to recruit rural students who are underrepresented in college. 

• How can philanthropy help schools reach students who are not planning to attend college? Can schools do more to recruit adults who have been out of school for years? 

• Learn about building college readiness in rural communities. 

Michigan is in the bottom third in the nation in percent of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher. That matters to the state economy because college grads make almost $1 million more over the course of their careers than those with just a high school diploma. Michigan ranks 36th in college degree rate, and 34th in income.

Michigan didn’t make a list of 20 finalists for a second Amazon headquarters in January partly because the state wasn’t perceived to have enough college grads for the jobs that would be created by the new business.

Melissa Anderson, executive director of the Sanilac County Community Foundation; those who drop-out of college “come back home to live with mom and dad.

“So we don’t get the success stories. We get the horror stories of hopes dashed and college debt but none of the earning potential,” Anderson said. “You hear about a friend who went to college and dropped out and they’re working at Walmart.”

Michigan’s public universities are beginning to experiment with ways to get more low-income and rural students into higher education. Many offer generous financial aid to low-income Michigan students The University of Michigan offers four years of free tuition to students from families earning under $65,000 a year. Central Michigan University reimburses transportation costs to school districts that bus teens to the Mt. Pleasant campus for a college tour.

Those efforts are a way to at least dent the anti-college culture many students in Sanilac County grow up in, says the Community Foundation’s Anderson.

“It’s a disservice we’ve done to our youth, these parents, uncles and aunts, who say, ‘Well, I didn’t have a degree and I got this job and it pays money and we do fine.’” Anderson said. “But they don’t realize what the future holds. Students need a plan after high school.”

Read the full article about rural students by Ron French at The Center for Michigan.