Biggest Winners & Losers

I wrote yesterday about the top 10 ranked counties in sending undergrads to UGA from Fall 2000 and Fall 2015. Read it first. Brilliant stuff. OK, not brilliant, but helpful for getting into what comes next. As I mentioned in the previous post, you can see certain counties took off (Forsyth, for example) over that 15-year span. Others ranked in 2000 disappeared in 2015 (Bibb, for example).  Now let's look at percentage change over time.

First, a caveat. I warn my students about small numbers and percent change. If a county sent only 2 students to UGA in 2000 but 4 in 2015, that's a 100 percent increase, but small numbers like this make percentage change kinda meaningless. So below I'm talking about percentage change of counties that send a substantive number of students to UGA.

Winners

• I mentioned Forsyth County before, with a 920-student change from Fall 2000 to Fall 2015, that's a 460 percent increase. Stunning.
• Paulding County, a 149-student increase, for 199 percent increase.
• Cherokee, up 377 students, for a 139 percent increase.
• Coweta, up 189 students, a 135 percent increase.
• And finally Henry, up 188 students, a 96 percent increase.

What do these above have in common? They're all Atlanta burbs/exurbs.

Losers

• Elbert County sent 45 fewer students to UGA in 2015 as compared to 2000, for a 64 percent decrease.
• Clayton County sent 155 fewer students, a 50 percent drop.
• Madison County sent 85 fewer students, a 49 percent drop.
• Clayton County sent 155 fewer students, a 50 percent drop.
• Finally, Rockdale County sent 133 fewer students, a 43 percent drop.

Interestingly, Fulton County, always a big UGA county, had a 62 percent increase. Other metro Atlanta counties also saw increases, such as Gwinnett (23 percent). Cobb decreased slightly, 4 percent.

Below, a first stab at a map. Click to move it around, just like a normal Google map. Also click on individual counties for stats. The darker counties are those with higher growth.