One of my best post-college friends came from a small Western Massachusetts town which is majority White and working/lower middle class.
Due to the depressed state of the local job market, the vast majority of those who graduate in the top half of his and prior HS graduating classes who end up going to 2/4 year colleges or enlisting in the armed forces end up never returning after graduation/finishing their enlistment.
A similar pattern also existed in several towns around my Midwest college town during the '90s when the county it was located in was considered one of the 2 poorest counties in Ohio.
One factor for the extremely poor town-gown relations between my undergrad and the mostly White working class/on public assistance local town residents was because the shutdown of several local industrial factories in the '70s and '80s which provided most employment for those without a college degree…or any college, the largest employer left in the area was my LAC. Most of the LAC jobs…including entry-level/staff jobs required a minimum of a 2/4 year degree or higher.