By Nick Fouriezos for the Mile Markers newsletter via The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Lily Böhlke for Commonweath News Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

Rural students are the least likely to attend college or earn a degree - a problem exacerbated in recent years by persistent shortages of both rural educators and rural guidance counselors.

"The pandemic has pushed college and career readiness to the back burner, if it's even on the stove at all anymore," says Rick Dalton, the CEO and President of CFES Brilliant Pathways.

Short for "College for Every Student," his New England-based nonprofit trained more than 2,500 College and Career readiness advisors in 2021, including teachers and parents, secretaries and coaches, school bus drivers and cafeteria workers.

The concept: If rural areas can't staff up to address counselor shortages, they can at least equip their current educators with the knowledge they need to offer counsel.

"It takes a village," Dalton says. "Let's make sure the village has the knowledge it needs."

These "quasi-counselors," as Dalton calls them, attend four 30-minute virtual courses, learning about everything from FAFSA completion to nontraditional careers within growing fields like health care.

They graduate with a professional certificate from Middlebury College and have continued access to online resources with the latest information about college and financial aid.

That education is especially valuable when you consider that only about 25% of the counselors at high schools have received any professional development around college advising.

"Everybody who has contact with our kids needs to be delivering that message," Dalton says. "You can do it: Here's how."

Dalton has ambitious goals to expand the program, hoping to train 50,000 advisers in the next five years - a goal that's been made more attainable by the widespread adoption of virtual instruction during the pandemic.

When Dalton first began his work, a lot of the national focus was on the needs of students in urban areas, where 65% of the students that CFES Brilliant Pathways come from.

As of late, though, his organization has increased need with rural students who are getting "the short end of the stick," as Dalton says.

Rural students graduate from high school at slightly higher rates than their urban or suburban peers, but it remains challenging to get the resources needed to help them take that next step.

"People want to spend money where there is a significant density of students, and where they think they can have better bang for your buck," says Dalton, who knows a few things about rural challenges himself.

The Essex, New York native's regular commute includes a 20-minute ferry ride across Lake Champlain and then a half hour drive - hardly abnormal for him or other upstate New Yorkers whose work often centers around Middlebury or Burlington in Vermont.

"Just to let you know how rural life is here," Dalton quips, while taking our Zoom meeting from the front seat of his pickup truck.

Students Earn Degrees with College Coaching

Counseling is taking on new forms in other ways, and not just for high schoolers.

A number of organizations have formed in recent years to provide college coaching to nontraditional students.

One such company is ReUp, which specializes in helping people who have dropped out of college to finish their degrees.

Most of these students are adult learners over 25, now working full-time jobs.

Working with its own 500,000-person database and information provided by partner schools and states, ReUp reaches out and provides free coaching to those still interested in earning their degrees.

There are 110 million Americans that could have access to greater economic opportunity right in the areas they live with more education, says Terah Crews, the CEO of ReUp.

The need is particularly great in rural areas.

"Anecdotally, we see rural working adults have some of the greatest opportunity for financial security growth - and they are being left behind the most in that journey," Crews says.

I've been surprised in my rural reporting to discover that there are vast resources available to rural students, particularly low-income students, to help them earn degrees ... if they know about them.

That's the gap programs like ReUp can fill, a challenge colleges are struggling to address with limited marketing, recruitment, and advising budgets.

In four years, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania has been able to re-enroll 133 students through ReUp, says Thomas Fletcher, vice president for enrollment management.

ReUp doesn't charge the students it coaches. Instead, it charges the school, and each contract is different: for Bloomsburg, it charges 28% of the student's tuition each semester, then 37% their graduating semester.

"The decision, in my mind, was pretty simple," Fletcher says. "Do we want 72% of tuition and revenue, or zero of it?"

ReUp has roughly 50 partners, a number of which are rural serving, including places like Arkansas Technical University and Texas State University.

Most schools work with ReUp to increase enrollment across majors, but some focus on just one area. And in some cases, states will contract with ReUp to try to fill a specific workforce need.

That raises the question of whether ReUp might steer students into the degrees or professions that their partner institutions are paying for, regardless of whether it's in that student's best interests.

However, Crews says they work to match students with programs for which they have already completed some credits.

That means the student has already shown interest in that profession - and that it would be more affordable for the student to try to finish that degree, rather than completely restart on a different track.

"These are populations that most institutions won't even touch, because they say it's way too hard," Crews says.

Nick Fouriezos wrote this article for the Mile Markers newsletter via The Daily Yonder.


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A group of West Virginia Democratic delegates is calling for a special session to address West Virginia University's budget shortfall.

Del. Evan Hansen, D-Morgantown, said the legislature shares responsibility for the university's budget crisis, which has resulted in plans to slash 143 faculty positions and eliminate nearly 30 majors. The university's board approved the cuts last week.

Hansen pointed out that over the years, the university's funding has declined by tens of millions of dollars, and added people statewide will feel the impacts of a diminished university system.

"It's a big hit on the local economy and on the regional economy, and for the families of people who are losing their jobs," Hansen noted. "Across the state, there's a lot less discretionary funds available for various programs that provide services in counties all across West Virginia."

The university is facing a $45 million deficit, which its president, E. Gordon Gee, said is due to declining state funding and decreased enrollment. In addition to Hansen, three other delegates are asking the governor to call the legislature into session to support the university.

Hansen emphasized some of the programs targeted for cuts related to diversifying the energy sector and others, have value for the employers and businesses in the Mountain State.

"For example, the public administration program is very important in West Virginia," Hansen outlined. "The parks and recreation program that's being eliminated is something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, given that we're leaning into an outdoor recreation and tourism based economy. "

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, West Virginia is rapidly losing its population, and is among more than a dozen states experiencing population losses between 2021 and 2022.


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A bill passed during Nevada's last legislative session requires Nevada students in public high schools to learn about economics and financial literacy. But a report from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Milken Institute shows many people across the country, young and old, lack the basic knowledge to make smart financial decisions.

Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, said in order to bridge the equity gap around the country, it has partnered with Capital One to offer a free financial education program that is available online.

"Before I even started tutoring my cousins and started Khan Academy, I worked in finance," he said. "I saw the gap that was there, even among folks with professional degrees and college degrees, but we were always looking for a way to resource this and to really get it into the classroom."

Khan added the virtual course allows individuals to learn at their own pace and from wherever they choose. According to the FINRA Foundation, people with higher financial literacy are less likely to have late fees or make only minimum payments on their credit cards.

Kerone Vatel, head of community impact and investment with Capital One, said younger generations across the country are experiencing "angst" when it comes to what she calls "adulting." She added Capital One is excited to join Khan Academy to help people of all ages foster financial wellbeing. Vatel explained there are a lot of things to navigate in today's world, from student debt and credit-card debt to eventually figuring out whether to purchase or rent a home in today's economy.

"So there is a very practical fallout from this," Vatel continued. "We see from research that students who engage in high-quality financial literacy education are twice as likely to save. We know that unexpected things happen in life. Two years ago, I had a major health scare."

The lessons and curriculum, independently developed by Khan Academy, will help people take better control of their finances and let them examine their own spending habits to foster saving over time, Vatel said.

The complex and confusing process of applying to college is thought to be contributing to a decline in the number of high school graduates who go on to higher education. Now, a nonprofit is stepping in with a challenge to those institutions.

In a new survey of 16- to 22-year-olds, more than half said applying for college is their "most stressful academic experience" so far. That led the Lumina Foundation to launch The Great Admissions Redesign.

To improve the application process, said Lumina strategy director Melanie Heath, almost $3 million is being offered to state higher-ed systems, where enrollment has declined across the board "in all types of different degree programs, among all ages of students, among all races of students - particularly for students of color."

In Texas and elsewhere, pandemic disruptions led many typically bound for college to jump into the workforce, where good-paying jobs were on the rise.

More information about The Great Admissions Redesign is online at luminafoundation.org.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that consideration of race in college admissions violates the Constitution, effectively ending the attempts by many universities to increase diversity. In Texas, the decision primarily impacts the University of Texas at Austin, where race was considered in undergraduate admissions, along with many private universities.

Heath said changing the decades-old admission process will require a heavy lift.

"Simplifying admissions is not something that can be done institution by institution," she said. "What's really needed is something at the system or state level - or at least, with three or more institutions."

She said proposals will need to demonstrate that the application process would increase college opportunities for students of color or low-income households, and first-time attendees.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.