The squeals of elementary students at recess and the occasional hiss of a tractor-trailer’s tires on the main drag serve as the only soundtrack as a quartet of high school students saunter down a Baldwin street, heading for some fun away from school.
Traffic stops briefly as it leaves town, next to the county courthouse and a gas station at the town’s only traffic signal — a flashing red light.
It’s a stereotypical rural small-town scene.
The skills gap is going to kill rural America. If there’s nowhere for students to get the training they need, they aren’t going to be able to get the jobs they need.Two hundred miles southeast, on the edge of the University of Michigan campus, it’s louder — a jackhammer pounds away, a steady stream of cars rolls along a nearby street and students crowd sidewalks. A homeless man pleads for help. Inside a coffee shop, one of several within a couple blocks, tables are full of students studying, professors working on plans and townies just sipping a latte.
It’s a stereotypical college town scene.
The towns show little similarity. Ann Arbor is in Washtenaw County, Michigan’s richest county in terms of median household income. Baldwin is in Lake County, Michigan’s poorest.
Washtenaw is Michigan’s most educated county, with the highest percentage of adults with some sort of college degree. Lake County is among Michigan’s least educated, with the second-lowest percentage of college-educated adults.