What could change how well these areas do in the future? One higher education leader poses a radical change.

In the last 15 years, states have slashed funding for colleges, spending $6.6 billion less on higher education in 2018 than they did in 2008. Colleges opted to shift more of the cost burden onto students by increasing tuition.

Officials with Georgia Highlands College said they shut down for the day to allow officers to investigate a “threat specific to GHC sites.”

On Sunday night at the University of Michigan Medical School's annual white coat ceremony, incoming medical students recited oaths, received their white coats – then dozens of them walked out.