The Chronicle of Higher Education released a nifty interactive map which shows the percent of those 25-and-older with at least a bachelor’s degree in each county across the United States.
This remarkable tool, which relies heavily on Census Bureau data, not only allows one to break college attainment figures down by gender and race (Asian, black, Hispanic, white) in each county, but also lets one compare these statistics decade to decade.
The good news is 44.4 percent of all residents 25-and-older in Dane County now have at least a bachelor’s degree. That’s the highest percentage of any county in the state and ranks among the national leaders.
Conversely, while 45.0 percent of whites here have a four-year degree, only 18.5 percent of blacks do. That 26.5 percentage point gap locally is larger than in Milwaukee County — which the Chronicle singles out as an area where the college attainment gulf between whites and blacks is especially wide.
Not that this gap in Dane County should stun anyone, says Sara Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology at UW-Madison.