Giving Compass' Take:

• Kaitlin Gillespie explains how rural towns can fight "brain drain" (when talented students leave for college and never return) by building a welcoming community. 

• How can funders help towns make the shifts they need to retain their talented young people? 

• Learn how foundations are working to reduce rural wealth drain. 

There were a couple things Heather Guenther knew for sure as she was preparing to graduate from Onalaska High School.

One: She wanted to go to college. She didn’t know where and she didn’t know what she planned to study, but she knew she wanted to leave, explore and earn her college degree.

Two: She wanted to someday return to her hometown, a rural community in Southwest Washington, to start a family.

Guenther and her husband, Jacob, are emblematic of a trend underway in the small town of Onalaska. This community in rural Lewis County made headlines in 2017 when all 43 of its graduating seniors were accepted into two- or four-year colleges. In this sprawling county in the shadows of Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens, less than 16 percent of people have a bachelor’s or higher degree.

Many rural counties across America are shedding young residents, who head off to college or better job opportunities and don’t come back — a pattern called “rural brain drain.”

But in Onalaska over the last five years, the number of people in their 20s and early 30s has doubled. Enrollment in the Onalaska School District — which includes the town and outlying areas — rose by about 14 percent between May 2014 and May 2018, to 851 students.

And at the heart of that growth, former students and community leaders say, is the high school. This is a town of Friday night football games, of stargazing on the school’s soccer field, of fishing in the pond connected to the school. In its efforts to prevent students from leaving forever, to provide a public space for all residents to use and improve access to nearby natural resources, the school has built a sense of community.

The school’s efforts align with research on how rural communities can stanch population loss by luring residents back home. According to a 2015 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, strong schools and close-knit communities are a key attraction of rural communities.

Read the full article about fighting brain drain by Kaitlin Gillespie at The Hechinger Report.