Fewer than half of Idaho’s high school graduating class of 2012 went onto college — but the college-bound fanned out far and wide.

They attended more than 450 colleges across the nation, according to State Board of Education research cited Tuesday by Idaho Statesman reporter Bill Roberts.

The State Board is paying about $33,000 a year to track student enrollment data through a national clearinghouse, Roberts reports.

Some of the conclusions are pretty intuitive; the most common destination for the class of 2012 was Boise State University, which attracted 1,039 grads. But Idaho grads landed in 49 states. (The lone exception was West Virginia.)

The State Board wants to use this data to get a better sense of where Idaho graduates go to pursue an education, and why.

Here are links to the Statesman’s article (with one of those pinpoint maps kind of like you might see on a high school bulletin board), and a link to the list of college destinations.

Disclosure: Idaho Education News is housed under Boise State University, and its staffers are university employees.