Friday night football is fine, but not at others’ expense
It is hard to know what to think about rural America. Because rural areas are sparsely populated, almost by definition most Americans have not lived in them. From popular portrayals, we might assume they are trapped in Joad family or Hillbilly Elegy poverty and desolation. We might conclude that rural Americans need the constant embrace of government just to eke out an existence.
It does not help that “rural” covers very diverse places, and federal definitions are highly variable. But miserable imagery does not seem to accord with overall reality. Assuming otherwise is unfair to rural Americans, and to taxpayers who might be required to subsidize rural areas based on it. More specifically, when rural legislators oppose school choice on the grounds that it would cripple a crucial government support—public schooling—they hurt families who might need something else.
The State of Rural America
Rural communities, as defined by the Census Bureau, are not miserable. The Census classifies an urban area as composed of a “densely settled core of census blocks” and “adjacent territory containing non-residential urban land uses.” It “must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.” “Rural” is everything else, which probably captures how most people perceive it: low-density populations outside of urban cores.
According to Census 5-year estimates from 2020 to 2024—the most recent available—median urban and rural household incomes were close: $81,762 and $76,850, respectively. Meanwhile, the rural poverty rate was 11.4 percent, versus 12.7 percent urban.
Some federal classifications flip the poverty rate. The Department of Agriculture reported poverty in “metro” areas in 2024 at 10.2 percent and in “nonmetro”—often deemed rural—at 13.7 percent. While Census data are based on relatively small blocks, metro numbers are based on counties getting one designation, though many contain urban and rural areas. Metropolitan counties have clusters of at least 50,000 people, or 25 percent of their employed population commuting to such counties, or 25 percent of their workers coming from the core. The commuting threshold means nonmetro areas will always seem relatively poor because they are, by definition, largely disconnected from big markets. Nonetheless, nonmetro poverty is not hugely different from metro.
Importantly, the cost of living, especially housing, is lower in rural areas, so a nearly identical median income buys more. Reflecting this, rural residents are far more likely to own a home than urban: 82.9 percent to 60.8 percent.
Looking at children and education, the story remains fairly positive. Helpfully, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) breaks communities into finer-grained categories than either the Census or metro-nonmetro binaries, with four major locales: city, suburb, town, and rural. A city is the core of an urban area with a total population above 50,000; a suburb is an area outside of a city but in its urban area; a town is a population cluster in an urban area with less than 50,000 people; a rural area is outside any population cluster.
As of 2019, suburban areas had the lowest poverty rate for school-aged children at 12 percent, but rural followed at 14 percent. Both towns and cities were much higher at 21 percent. Rural school children were also most likely to be in two-parent households—a significant benefit—though barely ahead of suburban children, 76 to 75 percent. Cities and towns were at 66 percent and 67 percent. Finally, 42 percent of rural children had parents with at least a bachelor’s degree; much lower than suburban (53 percent), but higher than city (41 percent) and town (33 percent).
Rural school districts are also not poor. As of the 2019-20 school year, they had middling per-pupil expenditures among the four main locales, but varying when broken into three sub-classifications for each main type, based on size or distance from urban areas. Of all 12 divisions, the second-highest current expenditure per-pupil—$14,111—was in the most distant rural communities. The highest was in large cities, and the lowest remote towns. The average was $13,393.
Rural communities are also not, typically, highly isolated.
With the World Wide Web one can reach, well, the world. As of 2019, 100 percent of suburban, 99 percent of city, and 98 percent of town school-aged children had household internet access. The rural share was 96 percent. Barely last, and nearly universal.
Rural communities are also, often, not physically isolated. According to data from the Federal Highway Administration (which has its own definitional wrinkles) as of 2022 the average rural resident drove about eight miles for shopping, the average urban around five. Suburbanites approached six. Both rural and urban residents drove in the 13-to-14 mile range to get to dental or medical services, though rural drives were slightly shorter. Suburbanites drove a bit over 12 miles. Rural commutes, however, were much longer: about 29 miles, versus 11 for urbanites and 15 for suburbanites.
Concessions to Distance
Distance certainly presents challenges. Densely populated areas tend to have more that is conveniently located—entertainment, restaurants, shopping—and more diverse populations.
Difficulties recruiting teachers might stem from this, though rural public schools do not typically struggle the most. Rural schools reported the greatest hiring difficulty in only two teaching fields. The first was foreign languages, with 57 percent of rural schools reporting great difficulty filling slots in 2020-21, versus 53 percent for towns, 37 percent for suburbs, and 36 percent for cities. Proximity to populations speaking diverse languages might explain this.
The second was physical education/health teachers, but that field had the second-lowest difficulty overall, and only 15 percent of rural schools reported serious problems. Meanwhile, rural public schools had the second-least difficulty finding computer science teachers, a technical subject one might expect them to struggle with.
The purpose of an education system is not adult employment.
How about teacher quality? We do not have great measures for this, but rural districts are neither top nor bottom on two common ones. As of the 2020-21 school year, they tied towns and fell below cities and suburbs in the share of teachers with advanced degrees, which research suggests are not strongly connected to better learning outcomes. Research more consistently shows a positive effect for teacher experience, especially in early careers. Sixty-three percent of rural teachers had 10 or more years of experience, versus 64 percent for towns, 67 percent for suburbs, and 60 percent for cities.
Another downside of distance is fewer charter and private schools to choose from. A 2017 Brookings Institution study found that only about 17 percent of rural families lived within 10 miles of a charter school within their home state, though 69 percent had a private school in that distance. Not surprisingly, only 3 percent of rural public school students attended charters as of the 2019-20 school year, tying towns but lower than the 5 percent suburban and 13 percent city shares. Five percent of rural children were in private schools, versus 6 percent town, 10 percent suburban, and 13 percent city.
Rural families used other alternatives. In 2019, 4.7 percent of rural students were homeschooled, versus 2.5 percent city, 2.4 percent suburban, and 2.2 percent town. Looking at public and private high school graduates in 2019, 35 percent from rural communities reported having been in college dual-enrollment programs; lower than the 41 percent from towns, but above 26 percent from cities and 23 percent suburban.
The Social Capital Advantage
What rural communities tend to have in high levels is social capital: essentially, bonds among people. Friday Night Football—whole communities rooting on their town’s high school—is a sign of such capital. This is a good thing.
Consistent with this, states with greater rural populations tend to dominate the rankings of the Social Capital Project. Because it is invisible and intangible, social capital is difficult to measure, but the Project finds that percent rural has a moderately positive association with “social support”—people voluntarily helping each other—which captures the core idea.
In education, while rural parents in the 2022-23 school year were least likely to have recently participated with their children in such educational activities as visiting a zoo, museum, or library—probably due to distance—they were most likely to have participated in a “community/religious/ethnic” event..” Also, at 39 percent, rural parents reported the highest rate of volunteering in their children’s school. Towns were last at 29 percent. At 78 percent, rural parents were most likely to have attended a school or class event. Cities were lowest at 71 percent.
What does all of this translate into academically? While standardized test scores are just one way to measure educational outcomes, the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, covering reading and math for 9 and 13-year-olds, saw rural areas score higher in all four groupings than cities and towns, tie suburbs in 13-year-old reading, and outpace the suburbs by one-point (importantly, out of 500) in 13-year-old math. Rural students did relatively worse by 12th grade—in 2024 the suburbs outpaced them by several points in math and reading, and cities surpassed them by a point in reading—but, again, there does not appear to be a crisis.
Rent-Seeking?
Based especially on NCES designations, rural communities do not need special governmental help. Nonetheless, groups from rural areas often argue that they do, calling for federal subsidies, most notably in agriculture but also other domains. At the state level, rural representatives often oppose school choice.
Rural resistance to choice is likely grounded, at least in part, in high social capital—rural people valuing public schools’ role in their communities. It also likely stems from having fewer options than families elsewhere. More concerning, school districts are major employers in rural communities, often the largest, and choice might threaten adult jobs.
Of course, the latter two arguments clash: there is little to choose, but choice will kill. And public schools are huge employers everywhere. In the super-wealthy DC suburb of Loudoun County, VA, the school district is the largest employer. In New York City, the school district is surpassed only by the city government. In Los Angeles, the county government is top and the school district second. But the purpose of an education system is not adult employment. It is educating children as effectively as possible consistent with a free society. That requires choice.
People in rural communities who value relatively quiet living, and togetherness reinforced by local public schooling, should pay for it themselves. But rural districts are more reliant on outside funding than other locales. In the 2019-20 school year, averaged by the three subtypes discussed earlier, they obtained 39.6 percent of their revenue locally; higher than towns (36.9 percent) but lower than suburbs (44.7 percent) and cities (43.2 percent).
One reason for the imbalance is federal initiatives. The Rural Education Achievement Program targets funding to rural districts. More broadly, rural schools receive disproportionate funds from sources not aimed at them per se, but conditions that disproportionately affect them. Impact Aid, for instance, is intended to compensate districts for federal lands they cannot tax, which tend to be in more rural areas, while other programs are based on special populations.
Rural-specific programs are unjust, but funding that disproportionately reaches rural districts on locale-neutral bases does not discriminate for or against any given locale. Also, given the wide variety of places that fall under blunt rural and urban designations—if any locale needs special help it appears to be towns—it is better to peg assistance to individual, rather than locale, characteristics.
Conclusion
Rural Americans valuing public schools is fine. Friday night football can help bind people together, and that civic attachment is healthy. But they should not get special funding, or block families who need something else from choosing it.
Neal McCluskey is a policy fellow at Ed Choice.
