Manufacturing, it turns out, is good for both high school and college graduation rates.
A study by Stephan Whitaker, research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, found that students whose parents never finished college are more likely to graduate from high school and college if they live in manufacturing centers of the country, rather than college-degree-intensive centers.
Degree-intensive areas have a similarly high rate of college graduates among children with parents without degrees, but they have a lower rate of high school graduates. And non-degree areas without a high manufacturing base are lower in education attainment across the board.
