A report spearheaded by UW–Madison’s Nicholas Hillman was highlighted in a recent article in Inside Higher Ed that is headlined, “Shining a Light on Rural Colleges.”
The report, “Mapping Rural Colleges and Their Communities,” is one of two new mapping projects discussed in the article that aim to expand understanding of rural colleges and the challenges they face.
Hillman is a professor in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and the director of the Student Success through Applied Research (SSTAR) lab. He co-authored the report with Jared Colston and Joshua Bach-Hanson, both doctoral students in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and Audrey Peek, former assistant director for the SSTAR lab and currently a senior government policy and data analyst for the American Council on Education.
Hillman said their research was born out of the question, “Where are rural colleges located?” He and his team used the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) as well as the Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP) to understand and map these colleges across the U.S.
“There are places where education is happening all around the country that we would not know about if we simply relied on IPEDS,” Hillman explained. That, he told Inside Higher Ed, is why they paired IPEDS with DAPIP, which contains details on accredited postsecondary institutions and programs.
Hillman and his team crunched county-level data to create 625 commuting zones across 3,142 U.S. counties. “The idea that people go to college nearby where they live is captured by this concept of a commuting zone,” Hillman explained.
The colleges mapped by Hillman and his team include not only those on traditional campuses, but also programs offered in prisons, on military bases, and at community agencies and hotels.
“It’s training and programs for many different locations happening in these places that are actually exciting to think about,” Hillman said. “Programs meeting students where they are.”
To learn more about this project, check out the full article in Insider Higher Ed.