Cheyenne County avoids the "brain drain" problem

Although “brain drain” afflicts many other non-metropolitan counties in Nebraska, the portion of Cheyenne County’s population with some level of higher education increased significantly over the last 10 years.

Brain drain represents the movement of educated people from rural areas to cities. It has been an issue for more than 30 years.

In the past decade, however, Cheyenne County gained the highest percentage of college educated residents in the state with an increase of 8.5 percentage points, according to David Drozd, research coordinator at the Nebraska State Data Center. This data was based...