Jumping Rock, North Liberty, Iowa (2003)

There are fewer and fewer like him. With each successive census, the number of college-educated Iowans declines—not because of a drop-off in the quality of the state universities and community colleges (enrollment, indeed, is growing), but because there are too few jobs to sustain college-educated workers in rural parts of the state. Especially hard-hit are towns in the immediate orbit of larger urban and cultural centers like Iowa City.