“Our country is in the throes of a most painful and unpredictable transition,” contended Maria Kefalas and the late Patrick Carr in Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America. “Too many young people in their twenties and thirties are leaving.”
Lewis Whitfield, Senior Vice President of the Create Foundation in Tupelo, pointed me to this book written in 2001. The problem described has continued to grow across America and particularly in Mississippi, which was one of only three states to lose population in the latest Census.
The 17 counties served by the Create Foundation in northeast Mississippi make up one of the strongest economic regions in the state. Yet, “12 of our 17 counties are losing population,” said Whitfield. Nonetheless, the foundation’s 17-county region gained population overall.
Whitfield said Create Foundation strategies to sustain its region focus on educational attainment, broadband development, highway and bridge improvements, leadership development, and racial reconciliation. He said a key goal is to help make its rural communities wonderful places to live so young and old will choose to live there even if they have to commute to more urban areas to work.
In addition to providing leadership and data support, the foundation provides matching grants to county affiliates it helps establish. Through a $750,000 contribution from Mrs. George McLean matched by the foundation, county affiliates can get $100,000 seed grants if they raise $200,000 in matching funds. So far, 13 counties have done so and have significantly leveraged these funds to help revitalize their communities.
Create’s strategies have helped mitigate county brain drain while growing its region. There are lessons here for the rest of the state. Of course, most rural counties in Mississippi do not have access to such persistent and professional support.
Hmmm.
In the mid-1990s the Ford Foundation sought to engage rural community colleges in such activities. Its Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) spent millions to develop resources and provide trained staff to colleges, including several in Mississippi, to help them engage in community development.
In 2006, a federal Workforce Innovation in Rural Economic Development (WIRED) grant provided four Mississippi community colleges with staff members, expertise, and resources to engage communities.
Both initiatives had immediate impact but basically fizzled once resources from the multi-year grants ran out. The state, of course, provides community colleges no funding for such activities.
Perhaps state leaders should reconsider. No institutions have a greater vested interest in sustaining rural communities than rural community colleges. They depend upon their rural communities for students, faculty, staff, and part of their funding. Declining communities will ultimately result in declining colleges.
Just as it committed funds to staff and fund workforce development initiatives at community colleges 30 years ago, the state could commit funds to staff and fund rural community development initiatives at each college. Lessons learned and resources developed through the Create Foundation’s initiatives, the RCCI and WIRED projects, and other agencies such as the Appalachian Regional Commission could provide a strong foundation for the state’s program.
With aggressive programs, rural brain drain and population loss could be mitigated, if not reversed.
“I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly” – John 10:10.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson
21 comments:
Starting to look to me like this country is quickly accumulating an over supply of "brains" while suffering an under supply of "brawn".
conservative churches run the state and run off its youth when they have the means.....
"Just as it committed funds to staff and fund workforce development initiatives at community colleges 30 years ago"....So, how did that work our for MS Bill? It didn't! The money was wasted on a feel good idea.....so we shouldn't be having the brain drain problem, right? But yes we do. Sigh, Crawford as usual contradicts himself after all his bloviating.
My wife and I are not from Mississippi. We both came here for college and stayed after for additional education and to start our careers.
It has worked out well for us, but we had to make the sacrifice of living in such a boring state with nothing to do, for good jobs and the ability to amass some wealth.
While both the democrats and republicans have done little to improve economic opportunities, we never expected anyone to lay these opportunities at our feet. It’s up to you to make you own luck and career. Go to where your skill set is most needed and rewarded.
The state has continued to waste tax payer money with “empowerment zones” and changing the state flag. They throw good money after bad dumping funds into useless grants for “underprivileged” and “economically disadvantaged” groups. Over a generation or two later there is little to show for it.
What Mississippi is lacking is some self-accountability and drive. You could offer people in the Delta a 70k a year job in Columbus and they would come up for an excuse to not move to take it.
Mississippi has a lot to offer, but people that are talented and want a better life with more recreational opportunities, quality of life and better weather will move to better places. Why live in Jackson and their third world infrastructure and racism against caucasians, when they can move to places like Dallas, Jacksonville or Charlotte where they can have a better life and not be blamed for a bunch of losers problems?
I applaud anyone leaving Mississippi for a better education and opportunity.
@12:18
Nobody's leaving the Delta welfare state. The Dems designed it that way by constantly adding more and more "affordable" housing to areas where people will never be employed (keeping them dependent on the gov't) instead of in areas where there is at least possible employment.
The above comments are off base. Victim blaming at its finest. I come from a family of three. We're all in our thirties. Our family has been in Mississippi since before the Civil War. We're all MS college educated, and two of us have advanced degrees.
We all left MS for better opportunities and a more progressive environments.
We spent our youth watched MS waste considerable time and money fighting about racist state flags and gay marriage. We grew tired of watching the public schools struggling with substandard resources and chronic under-funding. The majority of people here prioritized football and mud riding above the advancement of all the people in MS. We each departed for greener pastures at our first viable chance. Until the powers that be recognize this and make meaningful change, the state will continue to suffer from brain drain.
And now it's time for the "we're better off without you, good riddance!" replies. The truth is you're not, and you know it.
@10:58 you really believe that conservative churches have run the youth away from Mississippi? Your communist view is both misguided and absent of facts. It couldn’t be that democrats in Washington and Jackson have turned Mississippi into nothing much more than a welfare state. Since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Leap Forward (following Mao’s teaching) that people who don’t feel like working because of a self wallowing thought of oppression should be paid and fed to stay home. Then in an effort to gain more welfare they spit out children that have no future or will to succeed. And it’s led to the disaster that’s facing America right now.
"No institutions have a greater vested interest in sustaining rural communities than rural community colleges." Yes, that's the true intent of those institutions, but in actual, functional reality? Nope....not by a long shot.
Community colleges are the LAST place you want to throw more millions of dollars down a bottomless hole with. Their leaders speak rarely if ever of preparing the students for the workforce and real world challenges. All discussions are about maximizing the capture of state and federal dollars....by any means necessary.
Those little fiefdoms shell-game those dollars until they need a new million dollar football field turfed over, or match money/down payments for multi-million dollar debt commitments for unjustified dormitories (especially after COVID), or unwarranted fine arts or nursing buildings that are merely expensive trophies with a negligible ROI - but idiot presidents can say "Look at what I've done!" and maybe put their name on it.....while actual education dwindles to nothing, and the community colleges themselves disintegrate due to mismanagement and malfeasance.
But hey - Andrea and the board has their back. Wink, nod, smile. Mississippi's "leaders" have no intention of addressing the brain drain....in fact, they're probably trying to accelerate the exodus of talent so there is more of that yummy pie, but only for those connected few.
@1:41
Great. Have you done anything to help any of the unfortunate poor people you left behind relocate to the affluent area where you now reside. I'm sure they would benefit and deeply appreciate some help.
Yeah, lifelong Mississippian. Looking to retire and get out of here as soon as possible. Really don't understand these people.
The only real answer to why young educated people are leaving in droves is “all of the above”.
Not to mention all the old farts running companies and state agencies not allowing remote work. Need asses in chairs at the office or you’re not working! Idiots.
2:37 - In actuality, we do need nursing buildings. We have the lowest census of doctors in the USA, and nurses provide more care here than any other state.
Some nurses (not Mississippi) were making $200 an hour during the peak of COVID.
Start recruiting Floriduh men and women to replace the brain drain.
WINNING!!!
North Mississippi youth should leave this state ASAP or risk becoming criminalized if not well connected. The criminal justice system is the economy of North Mississippi. Federal funds across the board are all too tempting for these little backwood counties. Corrupt elected officials, law enforcement, judges) Why would they invest in promoting the well being of their residents when they can make so much more via petty criminalization. It is not a sustainable economy and is driving these empty counties into further corruption. The state of Mississippi is aware of what is happening and tracks arrests and docketed cases. Would love to see the data! Corruption will ultimately fail, will be exposed, and will drive the state of Mississippi into a crisis. If corruption comes from the top what does that say about our country? It leaves little choice for citizens but to move into more populated areas, with greater transparency, and a sustainable demand for human rights and the rights of citizens. Unfortunately Mississippi is a brain drain state whether urban or rural.
Well...
Here's an idea: Start by asking Mississippi's young people who left, why they left and aren't coming back.
And, if you want to grow small towns, you do what other States have done. You help your largest cities change small towns into suburbs. You poor money where the people are, not where they aren't. You don't oppose the few developers we have that have the needed sophistication and taste to create a tourist area.
Instead we have poor zoning and willy nilly development done on the cheap. There is no rational long term PLANNING. Instead we cater to property owners to let their properties become eyesores.
The answer is more HOAs
Rural? Hell, we can't get them to even come back to the Jackson metro area. Ask the State why they aren't helping attract jobs to here? College graduates want to live in areas with bars, restaurants and cultural activities galore. Until there is an investment in jobs in this area, all of those "attractions" to young kids aren't going to happen. They'll continue to move to areas that have those things and plenty of jobs in their field of study.
@1:41 You've lost your damn mind if you think most kids care about the flag to have left, and I'm no defender of the flag. But, sure, a few like yourself brainwashed to see/think about every issue through the lens of racism think that way.
@1040 the fact that Mississippi had confederate symbols on its flag until 2020, that it had to be shamed into changing it, and that a large fraction of people here got butt hurt when they took it away was a great representation of the overall mindset for many in Mississippi. That mindset drives young people away and keeps others from moving here. People here where I currently live couldn’t believe that Mississippi had that on their flag. They were astonished. Try getting out of Mississippi every now and then and see for yourself.
I live in the Delta. It’s a safe bet that every Delta county has fewer people than it did 100 years ago. Tunica County’s casino boom has played out. I’m surprised Mississippi’s population declined by only 6,000 from 2010 to 2020
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