Giving Compass' Take:

• More rural communities are pushing their residents to attend college and obtain degrees so that they can stimulate more job growth in a decreasing workforce. 

• What incentives can rural states introduce to get more residents into higher education? What are the alternative post-secondary education options? 

• Read about how philanthropy could strengthen and invest more in rural areas. 

When the Chemours chemical plant in New Johnsonville, Tennessee, needed workers to maintain its high-tech machinery, it advertised for them as far as 90 miles away in Nashville in one direction and 150 miles away in Memphis on the other.

It still couldn’t fill the jobs.

“You just can’t find anybody because people don’t want to come that far,” said Gregory Martz, manager of the facility, which makes a quarter of the nation’s supply of titanium dioxide used in everything from paints to plastics and paper.  The problem isn’t just that the plant is in a rural town with a population of less than 2,000.

It’s that fewer than one in five of adults in the entire surrounding Humphreys County have at least an associate degree, according to census data analyzed by the nonprofit advocacy organization Complete Tennessee.

Educators and policymakers started raising alarms about low levels of college-going among people in places like this after frustration from rural Americans over limited opportunities and incomes spilled over into national politics in 2016.

Now growing demand for college-trained workers has brought a powerful new voice to the chorus: businesses desperate to fill increasingly complex jobs at a time of almost nonexistent unemployment. With worker shortages hitting industries nationwide, their companies — and many states’ economies — depend on it.

Read the full article about job growth in rural economies by Matt Krupnick at The Hechinger Report