By Lane Wendell Fischer for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

For many rural students, the road to any college - whether it be out-of-state, in-state, or regional - may not feel like a road at all. It may feel like a winding, overgrown path filled with advisors, unfamiliar processes, and support systems that were never built with small towns in mind.

In five states across the country, a team of researchers and educators is preparing to hit the road to help build better higher education pathways for rural students. But they're not just plotting routes on a map, they're planning something deeper: how to show up in small communities with respect, listen without assumptions, and stay long enough to have a real conversation.

Andrew Koricich is the executive director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges, a research and resource hub focused on highlighting the important role of regional colleges in economic and community development.

Koricich is leading this new approach to build paths to higher education by establishing the Rural Talent Lab. The lab, composed of higher education researchers and educators, will partner with state education agencies to increase student access and enrollment in regional colleges. Here, students can acquire training and skills to find good paying work and support local workforce needs, from welding to nursing to culinary arts.

Over the next four years, his team of researchers and state leaders will hop on a charter bus to visit the rural communities they will be working with. Koricich has one goal in mind for these trips: to listen.

"We've got to stop treating rural communities like pit stops," Koricich said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "If we're going to do work with rural places - not just on them - that starts with how we show up."

He's also checking for neckties.

"When we go on these community tours, I better not see one person in a suit and tie," Koricich said. "That might feel weird, but it matters. Don't dress like a bum - that's insulting - but don't overdress either. We're just people, sitting around having a conversation."

The goals of the project are to help state education agencies form stronger, longer-lasting partnerships with rural schools and communities, Koricich said.

Once that relationship is established, the Talent Lab will work with their state partners to develop statewide plans built by data-driven research, but most importantly, built by the needs and desires of the rural communities themselves.

What makes this project different isn't just the scope of the work - it's how that work gets done. "This can't be extractive," Koricich said. "We're not coming to take. We're coming to listen, to invest, to stay for breakfast the next morning - and to come back again."

The Way You Show Up Matters

That shift in tone and posture runs through every piece of the project. Instead of arriving with a pre-baked plan, the national team is working to support what rural communities already know: what's needed, what's possible, and what will actually stick.

Each state will take its own approach, guided by local priorities. The national team will offer research and coordination, but not direction. And crucially, they're focused on building trust, not just completing a checklist.

That includes making sure local dollars stay local. The teams will eat at community restaurants, sleep in local hotels, and spend their time in town - not just swoop in for a meeting and head back to the city.

Ty McNamee, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Mississippi and research fellow for the project, says that mindfulness is essential - especially in places where outside help has too often come with a side of condescension.

"Rural communities aren't broken," McNamee said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "Rural students aren't an 'at-risk population.' That language makes it sound like something's wrong with them - and there's not. They're brilliant. They're capable. They deserve systems that believe in them."

McNamee, who grew up in rural Wyoming, knows what it means when institutions fail to meet rural students where they are. He hopes this work flips the script by not just improving opportunities, but rebuilding trust in the process and trust in higher education.

"We're not showing up to fix people," he says. "We're showing up to learn from them."

That means making space for local ideas and trusting local relationships. And, as Koricich puts it, "getting comfortable being uncomfortable."

After the Tour Bus Leaves

In many ways, the Rural Talent Lab team is built to be temporary. Their role is to help remove the barriers that have, for so long, prevented long-term partnerships between rural communities, regional colleges, and state education leaders.

The project is set to run for four years. Koricich says the goal is to leave something more lasting behind.

"We hope that by the end, the state teams have built durable relationships with the communities they've visited," he said. "They should be able to go back to those folks later and say, 'We tried 43 things, one of them didn't work - let's try again.'"

That kind of long-term relationship-building takes more than strategy. It takes trust. And that trust is built, Koricich says, not just by the content of the work - but by the method.


Lane Wendell Fischer wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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Colorado, already considered a national leader in workforce development, is aiming to raise the bar even higher.

Gov. Jared Polis recently issued an executive order calling on state agencies to create a more integrated system which meets learners where they are so they can access the education and training they need to get good jobs in Colorado's evolving economy.

Angie Paccione, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said the challenge is to restructure siloed agencies and initiatives and design a system to work even better.

"Bring together the best of what each individual division and department is doing," Paccione recommended. "Bring it together in a way that's going to make it easier for individuals to navigate and also ultimately get the skills and training that they need for the jobs that they want."

Colorado ranks first nationally, tied with Massachusetts, for its percentage of residents who have a credential or degree beyond high school but there is room for improvement. There are currently two available jobs for every unemployed person in the state. More than 90% of top-paying jobs require some form of postsecondary education but just half of graduating seniors are signing up for college or certificate programs, well below the national average of 61%.

Paccione stressed the new order aims to find out what's keeping high school graduates from taking the next step and then eliminate barriers so all Colorado students have a clear pathway toward a sustainable wage. She added it is not just about creating worker bees.

"We're all going to work 40 to 45 years," Paccione emphasized. "We want to make sure that students are getting the education and training they need for the jobs of the future and the jobs that will inspire them and fulfill them as well."

The executive order called for the Colorado Departments of Labor and Employment, Higher Education, and Regulatory Agencies, working with the Office of Economic Development and International Trade and key staff in the governor's office to submit a comprehensive plan by Dec. 1.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


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Washington's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction has revised its public school discipline policies, and advocates for children said the changes weaken student protections and OSPI did not seek enough community feedback.

One of the new rules removes requirements for schools to consider alternative forms of discipline before suspensions or expulsions.

Derick Harris, executive director of the Black Education Strategy Roundtable, said since Black students are twice as likely to face disciplinary actions compared with white students, they will be unfairly affected by the change.

"This appears to me to be some rollback to a bygone era of zero-tolerance policy," Harris contended. "Which we know within the Black community is a streamlined pathway from the school to the prison."

OSPI said it followed all the required procedures in creating the new rules, including gathering public comment at four public hearings across the state. All school districts are required to follow the new rules, which take effect in July.

Eric Holzapfel, chief engagement officer for the League of Education Voters, criticized OSPI for doing only the bare minimum to engage the community about the new rules, arguing they did not give enough notice for the public hearings and there were not enough of them.

"There was one in the whole Puget Sound, so that's close to three million people," Holzapfel pointed out. "Only one public hearing from 4 to 6 p.m. How is a working parent going to make that?"

Harris explained most of the Black residents in Washington live around Seattle and SeaTac, yet the nearest OSPI meeting to comment on the new rules was in Federal Way, more than an hour's drive during rush hour.

"This represents an intentional neglect of voices that this would impact the most," Harris asserted.

Data show just one suspension can lead to decreased academic performance, a higher chance of involvement with the criminal justice system and lower wages.

Hunger among college students in California has jumped dramatically since the pandemic, yet Cal-Fresh -- a statewide low-income food assistance program -- fails to reach more than 70% of eligible students.

So, food pantries at colleges and universities are finding creative ways to meet student needs.

In the 2023-24 school year, 46% of students at Cal Poly Humboldt used the school's Oh-SNAP! food pantry, 4% more than the year before.

Mira Friedman - lead for health education and clinic support services there, who coordinates the program - said people may think that if students can afford tuition, they can afford food.

But that's often untrue.

"It's a misconception, because oftentimes financial aid is not significant enough to pay for all the expenses," said Friedman. "Food is very expensive, housing insecurity is very real, and food insecurity is very real for our students."

Data from the California Student Aid Commission found that more than two-thirds of college students surveyed were food insecure in 2023.

Humboldt's Oh-SNAP! program offers cooking and gardening classes, sponsors a weekly farm stand with organic fruits and vegetables, and even has a pop-up thrift store with furniture and kitchen items.

Students are also notified to pick up extra food from dining halls.

Contra Costa College, a 2-year school in San Pablo, recently launched a pilot program with 20 refrigerated lockers where students can pick up groceries they order online.

Basic needs coordinator Hope Dixon said the program also helps students with Cal-Fresh applications.

"The eligibility requirements around CalFresh are incredibly challenging," said Dixon. "I have a flow chart that helps students pre-review if they have some eligibility. In order to apply, there's an interview, and students are often in classes. If they miss the call, it's very, very hard."

Students who are on a school food plan only qualify for Cal Fresh if it is the most minimal plan.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.



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