Thread by @ARRC_Research

You’ve heard us tweet and talk for a while now about our project on #rural-serving institutions (#RSIs), & today is the day we finally release our work. We have spent the last year pouring over data, reading existing research, & talking to a number of stakeholders to guide us. 🧵

We embarked on this work because the existing means to talk about institutions that serve #rural populations rely entirely on identifying institutions that are located in rural places, leaving out #RSIs that are located outside of places formally identified as "rural."

To do so, we created a five-factor score based on measures of geography, population, & degrees awarded in specific fields of unique #rural importance. Each institution has an RSI score between 0-4 and those with an above-average RSI score were deemed to be #RSIs.

We identified 1,087 #RSIs & 505 high RSIs across the country and sectors. They include 53% of public, 2-year colleges, 46% of public, 4-year colleges, & nearly 1/3 of private, 4-year institutions. N. Carolina is home to the most RSIs (67), followed by Texas (53) & Georgia (47).

62% of land-grant colleges are #RSIs. So are many #MSIs, including 93% of #TCUs & 32% of #HBCUs. They also serve communities facing challenges. 83% of institutions in low-employment counties are RSIs, as are 68% of institutions in persistent poverty counties.

We hope that this new data infrastructure will provide data that can be used by qualitative and quantitative researchers to enhance our knowledge about #RSIs and by policymakers to inform better policy and funding approaches.

We see applications for foundations to inform #rural-focused philanthropy efforts, and we hope campus leaders use it for benchmarking & collaboration. Journalists interested in rural higher ed can use the metric to identify #RSIs and tell their stories to a broader audience.

You can learn more about this project and these institutions by reading our full report, "Introducing Our Nation's #Rural-Serving Postsecondary Institutions," at our website regionalcolleges.org/project/rurals…. You can also find complete technical documentation, user guides, and data file.

Our project site also hosts a map tool you can use to interact with our data. It allows you to apply custom filters, download custom data files, view and compare institutional data, and download institution-specific information. Check it out!

In the coming weeks, we will be hosting stakeholder-specific webinars about the project, authoring op-eds, and releasing additional research briefs focused on #RSIs. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to be notified about future activities.

Our team wants to thank @daniellejvetter, Kirstin Yeado, & the entire team @AscendiumEP for their tireless support of this work. We also want to thank Alli Bell, Linda Baglia, @kristinHCM, & the @HCMStrat team for their comprehensive project support.

We also want to thank our amazing team of students (@SJenks352, @brinabird, @sergio_cutiva, @mv_woodle, Dan Napsha, @official_leey, & @eriechtapia) for their many contributions to this project.

We look forward to hearing from you about this work! To learn more about ARRC and our other projects and publications, visit regionalcolleges.org.