Title: Policy, Politics and Population
Headings: Policy, Politics and Population: December 2011
Policy, Politics and Population: December 2011
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Lawmakers can track trends and gain valuable insight from the census.
Older Boomers
Children
Poverty
Education
Rural vs. Metro

Content: Only 36 percent of first-time, full-time Latino students earn a degree within six years, compared with 49 percent of Anglos. For the United States to rise to the top of the world in the percentage of college graduates, the nation needs to graduate an additional 13.4 million students, including 3.3 million Latinos, by 2020. Increasing the number of Latino college graduates requires a coordinated effort, including providing more preschool, middle and high school college counseling. Dropout prevention programs, simplifying college admission and transfer, and improving college affordability will also help Latino kids achieve a college education. Rural vs. Metro
One of the most dramatic demographic shifts of the past century has been the transformation of the country from largely rural to largely urban. In 1910, 72 percent of the country lived in rural areas. Today, only 18 percent do. Everyone else lives in a city or suburb. The population in rural counties, in fact, is growing at less than half the rate of metro counties, and the most isolated rural counties—those farthest from metro areas—are not growing at all; they have declined by 1.4 percent since 2000.