Giving Compass' Take:

• Rural high schools are not encouraging students to attend rural universities, nor are rural universities providing relevant job training, widening the already large skills gap in these areas.  

• What can donors to help create either more workforce development pipelines or education pathways for rural students? 

• Read about how rural areas struggle to retain leaders. 

Farris Beasley stands in a barn on his 600-acre farm, pointing out equipment both ancient and modern and longing for the days when all of it was as easy to repair as his 1939 John Deere tractor.

Like Beasley, a retired large-animal veterinarian, farmers nationwide are hard-pressed these days to find mechanics trained to maintain their 21st-century equipment or workers who understand the complexities of modern farming or how to tend to cows or horses.

Here in Fayetteville, a rural community 80 miles south of Nashville and 33 miles north of Huntsville, Alabama, agriculture is by far the largest industry, generating at least $110 million a year in surrounding Lincoln County. Until recently, though, the only college in town had no agriculture classes — and nobody can explain why.

It’s a problem contributing to a widening skills gap in rural communities across the country: Not only are rural high school graduates less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to go to college; higher education institutions in many of these places aren’t training them to fill the jobs that are their regions’ lifeblood.

In many cases, all sides agree, this is a result of a lack of communication and even a cultural divide between educators and farmers and other rural businesses. In others, colleges are putting a priority on turning out computer coders and other graduates with skills in demand farther afield. There’s another reason, too: Many rural colleges just don’t have the money to run pricey programs in tractor repair or veterinary science.

Many states have financially neglected rural community colleges, which don’t usually have the local tax base or private money available to urban and suburban schools, said Stephen Katsinas, a University of Alabama political science professor who directs that school’s Educational Policy Center.

Read the full article about rural colleges by Matt Krupnick at The Hechinger Report