Tax in rural communities: missed credits and missing accountants

My old boss, an accountant (CPA) who represented taxpayers in their appeals processes, lived on a small farm in the highlands between Orange and Riverside Counties. Most accountants, however, are unlikely to trade the pen for the plowshare. According to this Vishal CPA Prep, some counties have no licensed CPAs at all.

According to the US Census Bureau, rural communities tend to "have lower median household incomes" when compared to metro communities. However, according to the same data, rural communities have lower poverty rates than urban communities. It is not too much of a stretch to infer that rural Americans would be in the tax bracket with low tax liability, but not falling below the statutory filing threshold. 

Credit: Internal Revenue Service, Publication 501 (2025)

The tax code is structured, in part, to remedy inequalities between poorer and affluent Americans through expenditures like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. However, many of the intended benefits and tax expenditures can only be accessed if the filer knows about the benefits. As noted in this 2018 article by the Internal Revenue Service,] rural Americans stand to benefit disproportionately from the Earned Income Tax Credit. However, rural residents often do not apply because they are unaware that they are eligible. The IRS article explains that qualifying taxpayers can claim the EITC by filing electronically "through a qualified tax professional," "using free community tax help sites," or filing "themselves, with IRS Free File." The mention of Free File shows that the article is outdated, as the IRS Free File program has been eliminated for the 2026 filing season. The other two solutions require the use of either internet services or the services of a tax professional, neither of which are consistently available in rural locations. 

For low-income or elderly taxpayers, the IRS also offers services from the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) programs. The IRS provides a geographic site locator tool so that filers can identify volunteers near them. These efforts, too, have geographic limits. Searching from the zip code of 96101, which is the county seat of Modoc County (Alturas, CA) in California, there are only three sites within 100 miles. UWNC, the Lassen Salvation Army, is the closest at 76.15 miles away. When they must rely on volunteer accountants, rural communities may be underserved. 

Accountants located near Alturas, CA

Credit: Google Maps

Even where volunteers exist, the supply of professional tax help is dwindling nationwide. The United States is experiencing a shortage of new accountants. With hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomer generation professionals, many positions will remain unfilled.

Credit: Preston Fore, AICPA 2023 Trends Report

Some smaller accounting firms have rejected potential clients because they have too few professionals to do the work. Beyond shortages, some tax experts caution that potential clients need to be cautious when choosing a tax preparer due to the current low bar to qualify. When firms turn away clients, bad actors may fill the gaps.

In addition to a shortage of tax preparation services, President Trump's 2025 hiring freeze exacerbated labor shortages within the IRS. As a consequence, tax filing and processing have become more difficult on both ends of the process. For low-income taxpayers, the shortages mean refund claims, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, will take longer to reach taxpayers. IRS response times when called for information have also become slower than ever. For taxpayers with no days off of work and only an hour for lunch, they might be out of luck when it comes to getting a live response.

Nonetheless, the IRS continues to publish helpful materials for rural-coded sectors of the economy, like the Farmer's Tax Guide. The Farmer's Tax Guide and other published materials are regularly updated to remain accurate to the current iteration of the tax code. With a shortage of professional tax help, taxpayers may need to rely upon the publications themselves to stay informed and know which credits and deductions to apply for.

The 2025 tax year's Farmer's Tax Guide (Publication 225) provides an encyclopedic level of information for farmers, from general concepts of the cash or accrual method of accounting to more trade-specific concepts like Elective Farm Income. The publication also specifies farm-related deductible expenses like "Breeding Fees," "Fertilizer and Lime," and other "Prepaid Farm Supplies." 

More importantly, the Farmer's Tax Guide keeps tax filers up-to-date on expiring tax policies, like the temporary 100% deductibility of food or beverages provided by a restaurant. From personal experience working with small business owners, taxpayers often miss changes to tax policy, which can result in staggeringly large tax assessments for deficient payments, audits, and lengthy appeals proceedings.  When those procedures are ongoing, interest is nevertheless ticking up.  

While helpful, IRS publications like Publication 225 may be difficult for many small business owners to comprehend. The length and depth of the publication makes it helpful, yet, but also difficult to parse.  Nestled within the publication is perhaps the most important detail, the rule surrounding whether farm-expenses can be listed at all on a tax return. As a long-standing principle, "Hobby Farming," or "Not-for-Profit Farming" doesn't qualify. Unfortunately for less-established farmers, one major factor in the consideration of a farm as a hobby farm is whether "taxpayer was successful in making a profit in similar activities in the past." More than most businesses, many crops need years to mature to profitability, leading to a horizontal equity issue between more established farmers and newer farmers. 

Grape vines at Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, July 30, 2025. 

Credit: Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Business owners still have options with the IRS publication information, even with a lack of close CPAs. A CPA is a term used for a certified public accountant who is authorized and licensed by the state jurisdiction to prepare taxes for a taxpayer. Kaizen CPA's accounting site recommends that business owners use QuickBooks if they net less than $500,000 each year. If their net income is more than that, Kaizen recommends a live CPA.  

For context, QuickBooks is a tax preparation software program offered by Intuit on a subscription basis. Intuit is the same company which offers taxpayers access to TurboTax each tax season. With QuickBooks, subscribers have the functionality to automate bookkeeping, generate business reports (i.e. Profit & Loss reports), produce invoices for the subscriber's customers, and with the most expensive subscription option, synchronize data from Microsoft Excel sheets. Most importantly for tax purposes, QuickBooks can calculate sales tax liabilities and generate Form 1099s (to report income generated outside of standard employment) for the subscribing business.  

Rural businesses might not have the option to choose a live CPA over QuickBooks. While QuickBooks does not have the functionality to facilitate the filing of income tax returns, it can organize financial information in a way to make the workload digestible for a live CPA during tax season. From there, the hypothetical rural business owner would need to take fewer trips to a CPA's office or may even merely contact them by email with their information ready. Now, with the shortage of CPAs nationwide, it might make a business owner a more palatable client to have their books in order.

There's a reason the CPA licensing process is difficult: calculating and filing taxes are often too complex for taxpayers to handle on their own. Furthermore, CPAs are responsible for more than tax filing, planning, and appeals. CPAs must be ready to produce financial reports, audit revenue expenditures, ensure compliance with regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, and investigate potential fraud within a business through forensic accounting. With a shortage of live CPAs and IRS employees, taxpayers will need to increasingly rely upon accounting software, which may miss niche credits that the taxpayer qualifies for. Rural taxpayers may thus need to embrace a new type of self-reliance when it comes to financial literacy. 

Food deserts and their disproportionate effects on rural areas

Food deserts are both an urban and rural problem, but rural communities are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to food. Food deserts and their effects have been discussed before on this blog, but food deserts and food insecurity remain a persistent problem. Food insecurity affects millions of people in the United States. As of July 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that a staggering 27 million Americans are affected by food insecurity or a lack of access to food. In many instances, food insecurity comes from persistent poverty, but other times, food insecurity is caused by a lack of access to grocery stores. The latter disproportionately affects rural areas.

Food deserts are a form of food insecurity. Put succinctly, a food desert is an area where people do not have immediate access to a grocery store to purchase food. The United States Department of Agriculture has defined an urban food desert as one where 33% of the population is further than one mile from a supermarket and a rural food desert as one where 33% of people are more than 10 miles from a supermarket.

People in food deserts are faced with a lack of options as well. A local grocery store or supermarket may not have the variety or options that a large grocery store can provide. This limits people's access to fresh produce as well, which is a crucial part of a healthy diet. Instead, the few grocery stores located within a food desert may only have shelf-stable, processed foods. This further compounds the health issues that many communities, particularly rural communities, already face.

Rural areas are disproportionately affected by food deserts. A CoBank Study found that “rural communities comprise 63% of all U.S. counties but 87% of counties with the highest food insecurity rates.” Another study by Verwell Health found that “over one-fifth of people living in urban areas and one-third of people in rural areas are in food deserts.” The numbers show that food deserts disproportionately affect rural communities. Food insecurity in rural areas is due in part to food deserts.

A lack of access to grocery stores or supermarkets plays a major role in the formation and perpetuation of food deserts in rural America. Many rural individuals have to travel long distances to get to grocery stores. This travel can become even more difficult and dangerous during winter months when weather can impact travel. Furthermore, when people in rural communities get to their local grocery stores, they find themselves faced with a lack of options. Many rural grocery stores do not provide people with “access to a wide range of food and beverage options.”

As mentioned above, many local grocery stores or supermarkets in rural areas only have processed foods available to customers. Processed foods are cheaper and easier to transport compared to fresh produce. Typically, processed foods are higher in sodium, fat, and sugar. This leads to an unhealthy diet which has further health consequences outside of food insecurity.

There is a direct correlation between food deserts, unhealthy diets, and health issues related to poor nutrition. Diets that are high in sodium, fat, and sugar lead to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other health issues. Furthermore, a diet that lacks proper nutrition can also lead to complications during pregnancy.

Solving the food desert crisis is a complicated issue as well. One suggestion is that food delivery services may be able to fill the void of food deserts. A study from the Brookings Institute found that 90% of people living in food deserts could potentially have access to food delivery services such as Amazon, Instacart, Uber Eats, or Walmart. The study also acknowledges that a lack of internet access could make it difficult for rural areas to access food delivery services. Lack of internet access in rural areas, which has been discussed here, is not only a technological limitation but can also limit rural area's access to food.

Food deserts and food insecurity affect many millions of people in the United States but disproportionately affect rural communities. While there is no readily apparent solution to the food desert problem, hopefully, more people will be aware of how prevalent food insecurity is in the United States, particularly in rural areas.

When you wish upon a media conglomerate: Disney's depiction of rurality

While I don’t consider myself a “Disney adult,” my friends argue my Little Mermaid socks and Mickey Mouse bucket hat suggest otherwise. Regardless of my title, I admit I have fond memories visiting Disneyland with my family.

However, I know visiting Disneyland is a privilege. As a previous blog post discusses, the difference in average household income between metro and non metro areas has increased by nearly 30 percent since 2016. Given the rising costs of attending Disneyland or Disney World, families from metro areas are better situated to afford the trip.

Yet, Disney’s influence isn’t confined to physical theme parks. The company owns or has a stake in a plethora of companies including: ABC, ESPN, National Geographic, FX Networks, Hulu, Pixar, Marvel, 20th Century Studios, Lucasfilm, A&E Networks and Vice Media. This monopoly allows Disney to influence and control media narratives.

But, as discussed in a previous blog post, nearly 25 percent of rural Americans lack access to high speed broadband internet, a higher number compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. As such, those who can access media owned by Disney likely skew more urban and suburban.

Therefore, overall, Disney likely speaks to a largely suburban and urban audience, and thus can mold audiences’ perceptions of rurality.

The company, begun by Walt Disney, originally reflected the more small town, rural values of Walt’s childhood. Although born in Chicago, Walt spent years of his childhood on a farm in Marceline, Missouri, which today has a population of 2,123. As such, when Walt began The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, many films centered on Mickey Mouse in rural America. In fact, Walt Disney described Main Street, USA, which is how all visitors enter Disneyland, as a typical small town in the early 1900s. Indeed, the street was inspired by Walt’s time in Marceline.

But, as the world expanded and urbanized in the latter half of the 20th century, so too did Disney. Around the time Disneyland opened in 1955, 64 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas, compared to 83 percent of the population now. In line with the demographic change, Disney has created more movies and shows set in cities. And, audiences have responded favorably. Today, for example, two of the highest grossing cartoon Disney movies are Incredibles 2 and Inside Out 2: the former taking place across multiple large, fictionalized cities and the latter in San Francisco.

While less frequent, however, Disney has not stopped depicting rurality. Thus, it is important to consider how a primarily suburban and urban audience views and understands these depictions in the 21st century.

While not nearly as high grossing as Incredibles 2 or Inside Out 2, one of the more obvious displays of rurality is Disney Pixar’s Cars, the 2006 movie about anthropomorphic vehicles. In the film, Lightning McQueen, a race car, gets stranded in the rural town Radiator Springs. One of the protagonists of Cars is Tow Mater, described as a tow truck with buck teeth and a Southern accent with a hillbilly twang.

The inspiration for Tow Mater came from a real life man, Douglas “Mater” Keever, a construction superintendent living in Sherrills Ford, North Carolina. Cars director John Lasseter struck up a friendship with Keever at Lowe’s Speedway in 2001. He met him on what locals anointed “Redneck Hill,” the place hardcore fans camped out to watch races. When they first met, Keever introduced himself as:

Mater . . . tuh-mater, but without the tuh.

Lasseter faced a creative block during development of the movie, before remembering his interaction with Keever. He called him in the middle of the day, asking if the Cars team could use his name. Keever happily agreed, and even made a brief cameo in the movie. In fact, his exact introduction to Lasseter became Tow Mater’s introduction to Lightning McQueen. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Keever stated:

You don’t know what Pixar has done for Mater. They’ve taken a poor old country boy and got him involved in something awesome . . . They paid me for my name, and for me to come out there and record my parts and stuff. They really looked after Mater. Paid for my mo-tel. They really bent over backwards.

While Disney paid Keever for contributions, we don’t know the exact amount. Thus, it’s hard to gauge whether Keever was fairly compensated for inspiring one of the most beloved characters in Cars, a movie that grossed over $240 million. Plus, Disney further capitalized on Cars’ popularity by building a real-life Radiator Springs for Disneyland.

Additionally, some label the character Tow Mater problematic, arguing he’s a stereotype of low class, rural white people. A Daily Yonder article entitled “Speak Your Piece: Hollywood’s Rural America is a Scary Place” opens with the simple question:

Why does Hollywood think rural America is either ridiculous or evil?

Tow Mater is no doubt ridiculous, and it's hard to know if urban and suburban audiences laugh at him or with him. Or, if Cars successfully conveys deeper themes about rural communities. But, perhaps the most weight should be given to the fact that the rural man who inspired Cars likes the movie. Additionally, Cars tells a story about two strangers from different backgrounds who form a strong friendship, a beneficial message for a primarily suburban and urban audience.

Whether Disney’s more modern approach to rurality necessitates celebration, criticism, or a mix of both, is a tricky question. I don’t have a clear answer. But, even as a potential Disney adult, one thing is clear to me. With great power comes great responsibility. Given Disney’s immense power, we should ask tough questions to ensure the company provides positive representations of marginalized communities.

Solving a rural county's public defender shortage one (or two) lawyer(s) at a time

The Methow Valley News reported earlier this month on an expansion of the public defender staff in Okanogan County, Washington (population 42,000).  (A prior post about the situation in this county that straddles the Cascades, on the Canadian border, is here).  The story is by Marcy Stamper, and the lede follows: 

The situation for people in Okanogan County who can’t afford a lawyer — and for the attorneys who represent them in court — has improved, with two lawyers joining the county’s public defense team and more money for indigent defense available through the end of the year.

One attorney started at the end of April and the other starts next week, Anna Burica of Burica Law, who holds the contract for public defense work for Okanogan County, said last week. One lawyer will work full-time on cases in Okanogan County Superior Court, and the other will work a 75% schedule in District Court. Neither attorney is based in Okanogan County, so both will handle many cases remotely, traveling to the county as needed for trials, certain hearings, and to meet with clients, Burica said.

The additional attorneys and money from the county “will keep us afloat a little longer,” Burica said. Because the state places limits on the number of cases each attorney can handle, Burica and another attorney expect to reach their limit by August, she said.

The story then describes new standards regarding case load limits for public defenders.  These standards that will be implemented over the next four years: 

The new numbers mean that Okanogan County will need 10 full-time attorneys for Superior Court cases, another 10 in District Court, and two in juvenile court. That’s a huge increase, since current contracts (a mix of full- and part-time) add up to just over three attorneys, Burica said. Burica handles some cases as well as administrative duties.

It’s going to be very difficult to find 22 attorneys to do full-time criminal work, Burica said. The pool for new attorneys is not encouraging — right now, there aren’t even 10 attorneys in Okanogan County, including those in private practice, who practice criminal law on the defense side, she said.

Okanogan County will also need 17 legal assistants to help with investigations and mitigation, Burica said. Mitigation specialists look at a defendant’s entire history — such as family issues or abuse — and can help build a case that avoids the maximum penalty, she said.

Stamper also includes some data I've not seen before regarding law school enrollment nationally: 

The situation is complicated by a drop in law-school enrollment nationwide. There was an average of 43,000 first-year students from 1988 through 2000, but then enrollment grew, peaking at 52,400 in 2010. After that, there was a steep drop for four years, ultimately stabilizing at about 38,000 new law students annually.

These data ignore the fact that most law students desire to work in metropolitan areas rather than rural ones, a bigger issue than the sheer number of those earning J.D. degrees.  Read more on these issues here.

Stamper quotes Okanogan County Commissioner Andy Hover as saying that that the state's failure to fund indigent defense makes it an "unfunded mandate, which counties struggle to afford.  He says the cost of providing indigent defense, which will rise with the new standards, could be "in the millions."  Here's some additional context from Stamper: 

The state Legislature has also appropriated a small amount of money for public defense. That includes $900,000 (split between cities and counties) to improve the quality of public defense services.

Hover called that additional state money “a drop in the hat.”  Stamper continues: 

Another $1.86 million will go toward internships and training, in part with the aim of encouraging attorneys to practice in rural areas. Some appropriations are specifically for representation connected with drug crimes, parents programs, and cases involving the insanity defense.

Read more about what is happening at the state level from Daniel Beekman in the Seattle Times, here and here.  

Rural Legal Scholarship: Magassa and Friedman's "Toward Inclusive Justice"

 Lassana Magassa and Batya Friedman of the University of Washington just published "Toward inclusive justice: Applying the Diverse Voices design method to improve the Washington State Access to Justice Technology Principles" in the ACM Journal on Responsible Computing.  Here's part of the abstract: 

We situate our work in literature on inclusive justice, public interest technology in the courts, value sensitive design, and experiential experts. Then we present our research context, the Washington State ATJ-TPrinc, and our method, the Diverse Voices. We provide details on our methods, including our project genesis and implementation of the Diverse Voices process. We conducted experiential expert panels with four stakeholder groups: legal professionals, currently/formerly incarcerated people, immigrant communities, and rural communities. We then report key concerns and insights which surfaced during the panels as well as the review process and adoption of the revised Principles by the Washington State Supreme Court.

Here is what the authors say about why they chose to include rural stakeholders as one of the four groups of stakeholders in their study:

Panel 4: Rural Communities. Selected to balance the historical leaning for urban communities to be at the center of discussions about technology in the courts [35, 68]; the needs of people in rural areas, their distance from judicial bodies, their digital capabilities, and other factors are likely to differ from those who live in urban areas in Washington State.

This is from the Rural Communities Panel, which features the subhead "Experiential Experts" 

We recruited three experiential experts from rural Western Washington state with the help of public librarians and held the panel in a local public library. Panelists included: (1) an attorney who practiced family law, counseling, and mediation; (2) the city attorney in a town with a population less than 5,000; and (3) a legal assistant who worked as a parenting coach.

Panelists were concerned about bias in the justice system – both bias introduced by technology and bias introduced by human actors. The Scope and Access to Justice for All principles state that technology should not create unfairness or bias. Panelists concurred but also felt that it was important to acknowledge that technology could keep human bias in check.

From "Key Concerns and Insights"

“Human beings are massively biased too, so it's really balancing ... maybe using the two [humans and technology] to help balance out.” – Rural communities panelist

Panelists insisted that having the technology available is useless if the judicial system's actors are not sure how or when the technology can or should be used.

“Oh, one thing before I forget, on phones ... I don‟t know if they still do, but I did a trial down there two years ago, and they have a hard and fast rule that you cannot use a phone in the courtroom. I did a trial, and my assistant was doing research on her phone. The judge said, put that phone away. I said, wait a minute, that‟s impairing my ability to represent my client. The judge said, f**k you, you put that phone away.” – Rural communities panelist

The panelists went on to say that when they used a laptop for the same purpose, the judge had no objections. To this end, panelists proposed that the Maximizing Public Awareness and Use principle should advocate for training for those who interact with or are a part of the justice system.

Panelists also questioned the ATJ-TPrinc focus on "high-tech." They countered with the term "high-touch" to bring the focus back to the people who carry out activities in the judicial system.

“High-tech is great, but this is human beings we're dealing with and relationships. People need to be heard to feel justice. When I see people talking about tech stuff, that rarely comes in.” – Rural communities panelist

The panelists expressed disappointment with the focus on technology over people. While acknowledging that the ATJ-TPrinc went some distance to affirm the justice system's users are people with human problems, nonetheless, panelists believed that if justice is to be experienced and felt, more could be done.

Elsewhere, the article notes the difficulty in recruiting rural informants for the study: 

The time and effort to recruit and schedule panelists varied by community, with some being more challenging than others: Legal Professionals (10 hr), Currently/Formerly Incarcerated (15 hr), Immigrant Communities (20 hr); and RuralCommunities (30 hr).

Table 2 shows the location, duration, and panelist composition for each panel. Panels were held in physical locations convenient for panelists, either at an urban university or at a rural library.

Here are some of the rural findings: 

Rural Communities experts maintained that humans are an essential part of the rural justice system and were concerned that as more technologies are introduced, the rural courts might consider humans less important, in turn having a negative impact on rural court users.

* * * 

Rural Communities experts were concerned that lack of access to adequate translation services could result in people having no or inaccurate representation.

I recommend this article in its entirety to those interested in access-to-justice broadly speaking, as well as those interested in formerly incarcerated individuals and rural communities. 

Rural broadband in the news as Affordable Connectivity Program comes to an end

I've been hearing a lot about rural folks in relation to broadband the last few weeks because a federal program, the Affordable Connectivity Program, is expiring.  Here are a smattering of stories that acknowledged the rural angle on this event. 

First, here is some CalMatters coverage, which explains lots of basics and also acknowledges the rural impact. 

On April 30, a popular and widely used government program began the process of shutting down due to congressional inaction. With its demise, closing the digital divide becomes considerably more difficult.

The federal government first launched a broadband subsidy program during the depths of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, where internet connections became many peoples’ only window into the outside world. That effort, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), was made permanent as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It offered a $30 monthly subsidy ($75 on tribal lands) to qualifying low-income households for broadband internet or cell phone bills. The program also offers up to $100 toward a computer or tablet.

However, it came with a major caveat: The $14.2 billion Congress allocated toward the program was a one-time thing. When the money ran out at some point in the future, Congress would have to infuse the program with more money or find a more permanent funding solution.

That future has officially arrived. More than 23 million American households, about 45% of all those eligible nationwide, will no longer receive the full subsidies that previously helped them get online. Two-thirds of those households had “inconsistent or zero connectivity prior to ACP enrollment,” a recent Federal Communications Commission survey revealed.

Partial subsidies of $14 ($35 for households on Tribal lands) will be available for some ISP customers for service in May, according to an FCC notice. But that will be the program’s last disbursement.

“Many recent press reports about the impending end of this program describe how ACP households across the country are now facing hard choices about what expenses they have to cut, including food and gas, to maintain their broadband access, with some households doubtful they can afford to keep their broadband service at all,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel wrote in an April letter to congressional leaders. “These press reports echo what the Commission has been hearing from ACP households directly, with many writing the agency to express their distress and fear that ending this program could lead them to lose access to the internet at home.”

Case in point: Alfredo Camacho, who lives in Guadalupe, California, told CalMatters that because he is no longer able to afford home internet service, he’s started taking his daughters to the parking lot outside a local library so the family can use the free wifi to do homework and look for jobs.

“This takes away grocery money,” said Camacho, who is one of around three million Golden State residents losing access to the subsidy. “Being a single father, $30 goes a long way.”

In anticipation of the shut-down, the program stopped accepting new sign-ups in early February. Participating households started receiving notifications about the program’s potential shuttering in January. After it ends, internet service providers are required to allow ACP-using households to cancel without termination fees.

The program has been an essential part of how millions of Americans get online, with nearly one-in-five U.S. households relying on the subsidy to keep their internet subscriptions active. Uptake has been especially strong in areas with high-poverty rates in both urban and rural areas.

Here is a Forbes story from May 6, 2024, with no acknowledgment of rural difference or disadvantage:

Congress first allocated $14.2 billion to the Affordable Connectivity Program in December of 2021, and that money—used to provide a $30 to $75 stipend toward internet bills per month and for a one-time discount toward the purchase of a laptop computer, desktop or tablet—is now running out.

The bill introduced to save the program would allocate $7 billion more to extend it through the end of the year and allow Congress to “work out the long-term changes that are needed for sustainable access,” according to Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.)

Before receiving the federal internet subsidy, almost 22% of program participants had no personal internet service and another 25% had only mobile internet, according to a 2023 survey by the Federal Communications Commission.

The same survey found that almost 77% of beneficiaries said they would need to make changes to their broadband plan if they stopped receiving the subsidy, with 30% saying they'd need to drop internet service altogether.

The New York Times reported on this pending wind-down in March.  

The program was tucked into the 2021 infrastructure law as a replacement for a pandemic-era program that provided certain households discounts on their internet bills. Although there is some bipartisan support to continue the subsidies, lawmakers have not passed an extension.

Interestingly, while it does not use the word "rural," it does include this somewhat counterintuitive quote from the Senator of South Dakota, a state popularly thought of as a rural place. 

But some Republicans have argued that the program is wasteful. In a December letter to the F.C.C., Senator John Thune of South Dakota and other Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the program subsidizing households that already had internet service. They have also pointed to findings from the F.C.C.’s Office of Inspector General, which has in recent months expressed concerns about some providers failing to comply with program rules and improperly claiming funds.

Finally, here's the Federal Communication Commission's webpage on the issue, which covers the basics, but/and also does not use the word "rural":  

The Affordable Connectivity Program stopped accepting new applications and enrollments on February 7, 2024. The last fully funded month of the program is April 2024.

All ACP households enrolled at the time of the enrollment freeze, February 7, 2024 at 11:59 PM ET, will be able to remain enrolled through the final month of ACP service if they are not required to be de-enrolled under FCC rules.

Households that are de-enrolled from the program, such as for failure to use their ACP-supported service, will not be able to re-apply or re-enroll in the ACP during the enrollment freeze.

ACP enrolled households are strongly encouraged to carefully review written notices from their internet company and from the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the ACP administrator, about the ACP wind-down.

Households are also encouraged to consult their internet company to learn more about how the end of the ACP will impact their internet service and bills.

I'm glad that at least some of these sources recognize the rural angle on the digital divide.  

Rural Democracy Initiative publishes Rural Policy Action Report

Here's how the Initiative describes the report: 

The report outlines policies, priority legislation, and executive action that support working families and strengthen rural communities. With your support, we convened our grantees and other rural leaders this spring to identify the most pressing and popular policies impacting rural communities. The resulting report is a valuable tool for advocating for meaningful rural policy.

 The priorities are, as also shown in the graphic above: 

You can read more about each of these priorities in the report.  

Movement on rural broadband, thanks to a $42 billion federal investment

Here's the lede for NPR's story: 

This week, the White House said how it will divide $42 billion that Congress set aside to improve broadband internet access among the states. This funding from the government will likely have the biggest impact in conservative, rural areas.

The story is reported out of Montana, by Aaron Bolton:

Most places in America that lack high-speed internet are rural. Fewer than 6% of Montanans have access to fiber-optic service, says Tyler Cooper, with the research and advocacy group BroadbandNow. He agrees the Infrastructure Act funding is historic.

TYLER COOPER: It is, you know, the most holistic approach to closing the digital divide in the U.S. ever.

BOLTON: Lots of Republican senators from rural states voted against the Infrastructure Act, but rural Republican governors are embracing the broadband money.

ERIC RAILE: Broadband access, at this point, is seen as vital to economic development.

BOLTON: Eric Raile teaches political science at Montana State University.

RAILE: There seems to be real demand for it in rural areas, which feel like they've been left behind in some respects.

BOLTON: Montana's governor, Greg Gianforte, says broadband is crucial for good-paying jobs, education and affordable health care. Montana is set to get more than $600 million. Tyler Cooper with BroadbandNow says previous funding often didn't reach those most in need because internet companies decided where to expand their networks. This funding, he says, is different.

COOPER: It takes a state-centric approach to the issue for the first time.

BOLTON: Now each state will be required to craft plans with public input and get federal approval before the money is distributed.

COOPER: Handing the reins to these sort of state broadband offices and having them in charge of putting together a plan with local communities is just about the best way I could think of to try and make this more effective.

BOLTON: Among states set to receive more than a billion dollars each to expand broadband are Alabama, Alaska and West Virginia.

Here's a story out of Wyoming about the $347 million that state will receive.   

While Wyoming thrives on its rural heritage, it can be a liability as much as an asset when it comes to communication and information. Thanks to another influx of federal money, the Equality State will be more connected than ever.

On June 26, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (N.T.I.A.) announced the allocation of over $42 billion to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories to deploy affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service. This is part of the “Internet for All” initiative – a key component of President Biden’s “Investing in America” agenda.

The story quotes Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce: 

What this announcement means for people across the country is that if you don’t have access to quality, affordable high-speed Internet service now – you will, thanks to President Biden and his commitment to investing in America. Whether it’s connecting people to the digital economy, manufacturing fiber-optic cable in America, or creating good-paying jobs building Internet infrastructure in the states, the investments we’re announcing will increase our competitiveness and spur economic growth across the country for years to come.

* * * 

Texas gets the largest allocation through the B.E.A.D. program, with over $3.3 billion. Wyoming’s northern and southern neighbors, Montana and Colorado, will receive nearly $629 million and $826.5 million, respectively.

"Sowing New Fields" on preparing rural students for the digital workforce

Ascendium and Chronicle Brand Studio (as in Chronicle of Higher Education) have recently published "Sowing New Fields," an 8-page pamphlet on "How to Prep Rural Students for a Digital Workforce."  Interestingly, the material on the home page for this does not reference "rural" students at all.  Rather, it focuses on minorities and first-generation students (perhaps this content on this web page is in error): 

Minoritized and first-generation students are the most vulnerable populations at risk of stopping out or leaving early without a degree. “How do we onboard, support, and transition students into, through and then out of the first year, and design it in a manner so every student can succeed here?” asks Drew Koch, CEO of the Gardner Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on student success.

The Gardner Institute is just one of several organizations working with state and community colleges to study and redesign the early stages of students’ academic experience. Among them include the likes of the Institute for Evidence-Based Change and the Rand Corporation. Download the full case study to learn about the various educational interventions being tested, including:

• Simplifying curricula requirements to improve student performance on major tracks
• Nurturing a more caring campus to increase a feeling of belonging for students
• Providing intensive advising during students’ first year

The pdf that can be downloaded from that page, however, does focus on rural students and rural economies.  Here's an excerpt: 

As the national economy continues to create jobs around the nation, one region has been left behind: rural America. For many of the 46 million Americans who live well outside major population centers, finding a job that pays a living wage qualifies as a major challenge. That number comes from a recent report on rural community colleges from the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.

Outside of the boom-and-bust cycles surrounding energy fracking and tourism, rural areas have struggled to grow their economies at the same rate as the rest of the U.S. Non-metro areas have lost ground in job creation compared to urban areas each year since 2009, according to a federal report.

Bearing the brunt are workers who often live far from employment hubs and in areas that are becoming even more depopulated. Small towns and remote counties often lack the infrastructure needed to create salaried professionals; workers residing in these areas are more likely than their urban counterparts to lack the broadband capability needed to work remotely.

And many of them hold traditional notions about what constitutes work, leading them to seek jobs that no longer are in demand or that don’t pay well. Rural workers generally must survive on lower incomes than those who work in the cities or suburbs.

Around one in three people in urban areas have earned bachelor’s degrees, compared to 19 percent of rural residents. But access to a four-year degree doesn’t necessarily determine a person’s long-term career success.

“People are trying to build pathways to economic opportunity where there are fewer places to go,” says David Bevevino, director of research and knowledge management at the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.

The trick to greening the economic landscape, Bevevino and others say, may lie in working with what rural America has going for it.

There are more data points, like the fact 1.5 million students attend 444 rural two-year colleges.  

And here's where the action seems to come in: 

Several organizations around the country, aided by seven-figure grants from Ascendium, are working to utilize close-knit local ties and strengthen rural infrastructure by linking some of those students with employers in their regions who need more skilled workers.

* * *  

Creating rural educational programs that lead to more and better job opportunities for students might eventually help two-year institutions reverse a 37 percent downturn in enrollment since 2010.  

Will be interesting to see what comes of this.  

Poll shows Californians support rural investments

Maggie Angst reports today for the Sacramento Bee today under the headline, "Free mental health care, invest in rural areas. Here’s the future California wants, says poll."  Here's an excerpt: 

A new poll released Friday by Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab lays out a vision for the direction Californians are hoping to see the state take in the years and decades ahead.

The poll, conducted in collaboration with the California 100 Initiative and the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, brought more than 700 people together for a weekend in February to weigh 56 diverse policy proposals in the realms of housing, energy, health care and education. 

Participants were polled at the start of the weekend and then again at the end, after multiple small group discussions and panels with experts. In many instances, the deliberation led participants to adjust their thinking.

* * * 

In broad strokes, the poll results demonstrated that Californians are yearning for more transparency and want the government to work more effectively for its residents and businesses, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, executive director of California 100.

“Do these findings spell hope or doom for California’s future? I’d say it’s a qualified hope,” Ramakrishnan said. “The kind of solutions people are pushing are pragmatic and aspirational — and some are also quite bold.”

Among the 10 most supported proposals, the fourth most popular related to rural California specifically and implicated spatial inequality: 

4. California should invest in rural areas to ensure that they have adequate funding for infrastructure, such as roads and digital broadband. (70.8% to 73.7%)

I must say that I find this concern for rural California quite heartening. I'm guessing a majority of those polled--perhaps a vast majority--are metropolitan, making this prioritization of rural needs especially heartening.  It shows that even urban folks want their rural counterparts to have core services like broadband and roads.  

And because I know readers will want to know and may not be able to get behind the Bee's paywall to see, the most supported proposal of all was:

1. California should strengthen its high school civics requirement to include experiences with participation, discussion, negotiation, and compromise in a democracy. (68.9% to 80.4%)

The digital divide in rural Arizona

Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our relationship with space and buildings has changed. As going outside became dangerous, school and work shifted to at home. Businesses shifted online, court proceedings switched over to Teams, and students were now part of Zoom school, sometimes without a reliable home connection. This work-from-home shift sheds light on an important phenomenon: the digital divide.

 The digital divide refers to the growing gap that exists between certain marginalized communities in the U.S. such as low-income, elderly, rural, and differently-abled folks who don't have access to computers or the internet. The gap continues to grow and widens along economic and racial lines. Broadband refers to high-speed internet access and is crucial not only to education in rural areas but to almost every other facet of life- healthcare, civic engagement, and public safety. 

One state that lags in broadband access is my home state of Arizona. In 8 out of 15 counties, no more than 32% of households actually have high-speed internet access. It is no coincidence that many of these areas are low-income, rural, and/or indigenous communities. According to Verge's 2021 map of America's broadband problem, only 5% of people in Arizona's Apache County are actually using broadband speed at 25 Mbps. To put this in perspective, Apache County is 11,000 square miles with 65,000 people, 74.5% of who are indigenous. In southern Arizona's Santa Cruz County, with 47,000 people across 600 square miles, only 11% have access to broadband. The internet has been deeply engrained into our daily lives. From accessing telehealth and medical records online to simply being able to do Zoom calls and connect with people who live in different states or countries, the Internet is a basic need. 

With special attention on Arizona and broadband federally there has been a new effort to provide high-speed internet in impacted communities. In late 2022, Biden announced commitments from communication companies several of which have been operating in Arizona to limit internet bills to $30 a month for some eligible households. Termed the Affordable Connectivity Program, eligible households will receive a discount, with those on tribal lands receiving up to $75 off. But, how much does this program really do? Arizona, the sixth largest state in the U.S. is served only by seven major internet providers, a majority of which aren't even available in most counties or capable of providing high-speed internet. This leaves only a few actual service providers that people can choose from. 

Are discounts enough to provide rural areas with broadband access? Companies with near-monopolies such as Cox which provides service to 69% of the state are not incentivized to build millions of dollars of broadband infrastructure in places like Apache or Santa Cruz County because no profit is to be made due to diseconomies of scale. Removing the profit incentive could ensure equal and efficient access to rural communities. 

Other sources of money such as federally funded grants like the Arizona Broadband Development Grant Program has specific allocations for rural communities enabling local communities to build their own or improve broadband infrastructure in rural and urban areas of the state. $75 million for 14 projects will go to 10 rural counties which goes towards "increasing connections for homes, business, public safety agencies, medical facilities, schools, and libraries" Apache County has received $9.7 million in funding to connect homes and businesses to fiber optic infrastructure. What if, instead of putting the onus on individuals or specific colleges and institutions to provide internet to their communities which are nothing more than temporary solutions, the government ensured high-speed access to all? Where you live should not determine whether you have access to basic human rights such as shelter, food, transportation, and good education and this includes the internet. The digital divide disproportionately impacts communities of color, especially those located in rural areas. As the gap widens along economic and racial lines, a reconception of broadband access is crucial to bridging the gap and delivering equity to rural communities. 

How remote medicine is transforming care of rural sexual-assault survivors

Arielle Zionts reports for Kaiser Health News and The Atlantic. The excerpt that follows features nurse Amanda Shelley in Eagle County, Colorado (population 55,731), and it picks up after she's received a call from the local police that a teenager has reported a sexual assault. 

Shelley... called a telehealth company to arrange an appointment with a sexual-assault nurse examiner, or SANE. The nurse examiners have extensive training in how to care for assault survivors and collect evidence for possible criminal prosecution.

About an hour later, Shelley met the patient at the Colorado Mountain Medical urgent-care clinic in the small town of Avon. She used a tablet to connect by video with a SANE about 2,000 miles away, in New Hampshire.

The remote nurse used the video technology to speak with the patient and guide Shelley through each step of a two-hour exam. One of those steps was a colposcopy, in which Shelley used a magnifying device to closely examine the vagina and cervix. The remote nurse saw, in real time, what Shelley could see, with the help of a video camera attached to the machine.

* * *

TeleSANE services are expanding across the country in rural, sparsely populated areas. Research shows that SANE programs encourage psychological healing, provide comprehensive health care, allow for professional evidence collection, and improve the chance of a successful prosecution.

... [T]here are no comprehensive national data on the number and location of health-care professionals with SANE training. But she says studies show that there’s a nationwide shortage, especially in rural areas.

Some rural hospitals struggle to create or maintain in-person SANE programs because of staffing and funding shortfalls, Pierce-Weeks says.

Training costs money and takes time. If rural hospitals train nurses, they still might not have enough to provide round-the-clock coverage. And nurses in rural areas can’t practice their skills as often as those who work in busy urban hospitals.

* * *

Avel eCare, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has been providing telehealth services since 1993. It recently added teleSANE to its offerings.

Avel provides this service to 43 mostly rural and small-town hospitals across five states and is expanding to Indian Health Service hospitals in the Great Plains. Native Americans face high rates of sexual assault and might have to travel hours for care if they live in one of the region’s large, rural reservations.  

On a very blue and metropolitan Democratic congressperson's reasons for going everywhere, including rural America

Ro Khanna, the California congressperson (D) representing Silicon Valley, wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago: 

A robust defense of First Amendment principles online is more important than ever. Citizens in our polarized country need to have conversations with each other based on mutual respect. Suppressing speech we don’t like leaves us blind to alternative perspectives that help us see the whole, complex truth.

My belief in a marketplace of ideas is why I do interviews on media channels across the political spectrum. It’s why I engage perspectives different from mine, why I visit factory towns, rural areas and Republican-dominated congressional districts. Imagine if Democratic lawmakers were required to have town halls in deep red areas and Republicans in deep blue ones.  (emphasis added)

There will always be extremists and partisan media outlets that increase polarization and make conversations more difficult. But we would be wise to remember the teaching of the great liberal political philosopher John Rawls: “It is extremely unwise to conceive of the ideal political society as moved by scarce supererogatory moral motives alone. That leads to hating other persons and taking pleasure in condemning them as falling short.” Rawls believed we should be humble about our own certitude of truth and not rush to condemn others who we think don’t measure up. Robust public debate is the first step in America’s healing and reconciliation.

I like this philosophy.  By the way, the title for the op ed is "Twitter’s Duty to Protect Free Speech," and its subhead is "Censorship of the Hunter Biden story might have helped my party, but it was bad for our democracy."  Khanna no doubt had the opportunity to publish this high-profile piece because of comments he made some time ago about Twitter's prior censorship of a story about President Joe Biden's son.  Those comments were revealed in a story that grabbed big headlines earlier this week.  

Here's some other coverage of Khanna's outreach to surprising places like Indiana and Iowa.  His recent book, Dignity in a Digital Age, takes up the need to spread high tech opportunities to rural America.  

On libraries, including the rural ones

New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote a few weeks ago of his gratitude for libraries, and the column included this nod to the rural variety: 

Had we had a public library in town, I would have spent my days in it, but we didn’t. The nearest one was eight miles away in the town of Arcadia, La. In fact, the town where I grew up — Gibsland, named after a man named Gibbs, whose plantation it had been — didn’t open its own library branch until this year, nearly 140 years after the town held its first elections.

Gibsland is now a dying town whose population has been declining for decades. About half as many people live there now — 773, to be exact, according to the Census Bureau in 2020 — as in the year I was born.

But particularly for these kinds of people, living in rural areas, libraries can be an incredible tool. When I was a senior in high school, I won my way to the International Science and Engineering Fair. That year, 1988, it was being held in Knoxville, Tenn. It was the first time I would fly and the first time I would travel far from home.

Determined not to expose myself as a hick, I went to the library in Arcadia and checked out every book of etiquette on the shelves. They were familiar to me, reference books, books of rules that in my mind were the only thing separating me from the appearance of refinement and sophistication. I devoured those books. 

I guess you could say that now, all that information can be found online, but high-speed broadband is not as ubiquitous as you might think. In 2019 the Pew Charitable Trusts explained that the number of Americans without broadband “could be over 163 million,” and that included 40 percent of schools and 44 percent of adults in households with incomes below $30,000.

I must applaud Joe Biden’s administration for using billions of dollars of American Rescue Plan funding to help close this digital divide, but for those who still lack high-speed internet, it is libraries that help fill in the gap.

On remote work for American Indians and Alaska natives

Marketplace, from American Public Media, did this story a week ago, "Telework could help tribes curb outmigration, but Native workers are being left behind."  Here's an excerpt:  

Maleah Nore has a job she’s passionate about, promoting mental health and working on suicide prevention in Native communities. But she’d like to do that work closer to the rural southeast Alaskan village where she grew up.

“Part of the reason that we’re experiencing such drain in our villages is that people are forced to move to these huge hubs,” she said, like the Portland metro area where she lives now.

A hybrid model allows Nore to sometimes work from her home office, but not from her Tlingit homelands.

“In order to do the work that we need to do to help our people and get further in this world, we have to leave our villages,” she said. “That is just counterproductive.”

Because distance makes it harder to be a good relative and community member, Nore said.

* * *

Research from the Brookings Institution and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ Center for Indian Country Development finds that the remote work revolution could have unique benefits for tribal communities and economies, but that Native workers are being left behind.

“No one is accessing the remote work environment as little as the American Indian/Alaska Native population,” said Matthew Gregg, a senior economist at the Minneapolis Fed and an author of the report.

At the height of the pandemic, Gregg said, data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows 23% of Native workers were teleworking because of COVID-19, compared to 31% of white workers.

“One of the key reasons is that there’s employment differences between whites and Native Americans,” Gregg said.

Native people are overrepresented in fields we’ve come to know as “essential,” such as health care, education and service work, and underrepresented in office jobs that are more likely to allow telework.

More than two years into the pandemic, Gregg said the telework gap has narrowed, but those occupational differences no longer explain the gap.

“In fact, within occupations, there’s a racial disparity,” he said.

Gregg and his co-author, Robert Maxim, a senior research associate at the Brookings Institution, have some ideas about what else might be going on.

“The first is access — or I should say lack of access — to broadband internet,” Maxim said.

On rural Democrats' quest for a "seat at the table" in Michigan

Nancy Kaffer wrote in the Detroit Free Press this weekend under the headline "Michigan's rural Democrats want a seat at their party's table."

Cathy Albro has a difficult job: As the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party's Rural Caucus, it falls on Albro and the caucus' vice-chairs to convince the state's Democratic establishment that the counties and candidates in her caucus ― places Republicans routinely win by 20 and 30 points ― deserve more: a place in the state party's strategy, with the investment to back it up, and more attention from the new Democratic legislative majority in Lansing.

Rural Michigan Democrats are in a unique bind. The problems facing residents of rural Michigan counties ― insufficient access to health care, jobs and high-performing schools, or inadequate infrastructure, including broadband internet ― aren't so different from the ones the rest of the state confronts.

But rural Democrats don't have a voice. In the state Legislature and in the U.S. Congress, they are represented almost exclusively by Republican lawmakers who tend to oppose Democratic legislation even when it addresses their constituents' critical needs.

* * * 

Now, for the first time in nearly 40 years, Democrats who prioritize those policies hold a majority in in the state Legislature. But Albro and her caucus know that even a party ascendant has limited resources, and making the case for renewed party investment in the areas they represent is a long game.

Still, rural Democrats say, their party should be careful not to count them out, because it needs their votes to keep winning statewide offices.

Kaffer than goes on to detail how Governor Gretchen Whitmer's recent reelection is attributable, at least in part, to her ability to cut Republican margins in nonmetro counties.  The story quotes Mark Brewer, a former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party who acknowledges that the party won't win a lot of rural counties:  

But we can’t get blown out, either. We need to keep the margin as close as possible. If we just abandon rural areas and start losing them 70%-30%, it’s going to be hard to win a statewide contest.

And it is that story of margins that has been the focus in another race where Democrats performed better than they have recently in rural places:  Pennsylvania. 

Central Pennsylvania town offers incentives for remote workers to locate there

Jason Nark reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer from Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in Centre County, "Two towns in rural Pa. are giving remote workers free housing for a month, in the hopes they’ll stay longer." Here's an excerpt: 

Last month, the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship launched a program called “The Wilds Are Working: A Remote Lifestyle Experience,” with the goal of luring remote workers such as Beal to rural corners of the state. Bellefonte, a town of 6,276 about 10 miles north of Penn State, and Kane, a McKean County town of 3,500 on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest, were chosen as the pilots for the program.

Rural “Zoom towns” across the country have launched similar programs, some of them giving workers $10,000 to relocate there for one year.

* * *

The Pennsylvania Wilds is made up of a portion of Centre County and 12 other rural counties in northern Pennsylvania, west of Harrisburg. Although the region has been an outdoors destination for camping, hiking, fishing, and hunting for centuries.

* * *

In the early months of the pandemic, when the outdoors seemed to be the only safe space, buzz about the Wilds region grew.

* * *

Some who left the cities got a quick lesson in rural America’s biggest drawback — poor Internet service — but that’s a cause that’s gotten rare bipartisan attention from every elected state and federal official between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

A rural Nebraska student writes about her transition to college

I just came across this piece by Lily Nagengast in the Hechinger Report, about Ms. Nagengast's transition from a rural high school in Nebraska (Bloomfield, population 1,028) to Boston College.  Here's an excerpt:  

While rural students encounter challenges similar to those faced by other underserved students, such as having to navigate the complex financial aid process with little assistance, some obstacles are specific to our student experience. To address these barriers and improve college access for rural students, colleges need to listen to rural voices.

For me, the challenges began in high school. For instance, my guidance counselor — who served as the guidance counselor for grades K through 12 — had only used the Common Application once before: the prior year, when my older brother applied to college.

In my college search, I largely relied on information gleaned from the internet and advice from my brother. Needless to say, in my school, preparation for standardized testing was minimal. Even if we wanted to take advantage of free online test preparation resources, the lack of high-speed internet access prevented my peers and me from doing so.

When I left my hometown to attend college, I knew my background would be different from that of my new peers. What I didn’t know was how different. At the time, I didn’t have the language for it. I struggled academically for the first time, earning mostly B’s and C’s while taking my college’s core curriculum. My high school didn’t offer any honors or Advanced Placement classes.

* * *

Although college-going has increased among rural students in recent years, the number filling out the federal application for financial aid dropped in 2020. While many attribute this drop to the pandemic, I see it as emblematic of larger problems plaguing rural students’ pursuit of higher education. Already exhausted and frustrated by the emotional and structural hardships the pandemic laid bare — such as isolation and lack of access to high-speed internet — rural students must reckon with the formidable question: Why spend four years of your life pursuing a degree when higher education doesn’t acknowledge or reduce the burden of your hardships?

I’m not advocating that all rural students need to pursue, or should aspire to, higher education. Instead, I’d argue that it shouldn’t be so difficult for the students that do. Improving rural students’ access to higher education isn’t an impossible task; it can be done. Consider the University of Georgia’s successful ALL Georgia Program, a new initiative developed specifically for rural students that provides scholarships, summer academic preparation programs, mentors and academic advising.

An essay with some similar themes, by Claire Vaye Watkins, is here.  My own essay about going from rural Arkansas to law school is here. 

I came across Ms. Nagengast when her Master's Thesis, in English from Georgetown University, was posted online to a few days ago.  It's titled "Repositioning the Rural: Contemporary Representations of Gender and Rurality in American Media and Memoir," and it centers Sarah Smarsh's memoir Heartland:  On Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.  I'm happy to say that Nagengast also cites my 2007 article, Toward a Feminist Theory of the Rural.  

On rural capacity (or lack thereof) to garner federal grant monies

High Country News reported last week on the struggle for rural local governments to access funds from the "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bill that funds improvements in transportation, water, energy, broadband and climate resilience projects." Here's an excerpt:

[A]ccording to a recent analysis by the Montana-based research group Headwaters Economics, over half of the communities in the West might not be able to access those funds.

Researchers examined 10 factors that influenced how well-equipped communities were to apply for grant funding, and then used those factors to calculate each county and community’s “rural capacity” score. For instance, Missoula County, Montana, home to the state’s second-largest city and flagship university campus, scored 94 out of 100, while Carter County, Montana, where there is no county head of planning and just 20% of adult residents have attended college, scored just 45, the lowest in the state.

Within the West, Montana stands out: More than three-quarters of its communities have index scores below the national median. The state’s low capacity exemplifies the challenges rural communities across the West face, including a reliance on boom-and-bust industries that create financial instability, and a lack of grant writers, land-use planners and emergency planners that would be helpful in applying for federal funds.

The story quotes Don Albrecht, director of the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State University:  

You go to a rural community, and typically the mayor is almost always part-time.  They don't have the resources or the experience or the expertise to even write grants to get the money in the first place.

A related post is here.   

Postscript:  An NPR story on this subject, from May 2023, is here.

Biden's rural infrastructure tour will publicize "Rural Playbook"

Here's a key paragraph from the White House's "Rural Playbook," which was publicized in a press release with a very unwieldy headline, "Biden Administration Releases Rural Playbook, Launches Building A Better America Rural Infrastructure Tour to Highlight Impact of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on Rural America."  A key paragraph--listing lots of states that will benefit, all with significant rural populations--follows:   

Across the month of April, the Biden-Harris administration will announce billions for rural areas including rural water projects, flood mitigation, transportation, healthcare, and tribal community grants, along with new technical assistance programs for rural and tribal communities. Earlier this month, the Department of the Interior announced $420 million for rural water systems across six states: Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. Today, the President is also announcing a $1 billion America the Beautiful Challenge that will leverage Federal conservation and restoration investments with private and philanthropic contributions to accelerate land, water, and wildlife conservation efforts across the country. The America the Beautiful Challenge is anchored by an initial commitment of $440 million of Federal resources over the next five years to a new public-private grant program, administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), that will support locally led ecosystem restoration projects that invest in watershed restoration, resilience, equitable access, workforce development, corridors and connectivity, and collaborative conservation, consistent with the America the Beautiful Initiative. The America the Beautiful Challenge will offer states, Tribes, territories, local groups, non-governmental organizations, and others the opportunity to apply for multiple grant programs through a single application that is managed by NFWF.

Note the key role of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, among many federal agencies with a footprint in rural America.  Interesting.   

Meanwhile, Biden was in Iowa today to announce the relaxation of rules regarding production and sale of "E15," ethanol-infused gasoline, in light of sky-rocketing fuel prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Here's what that looked like in White House publicity in advance of the trip (as picked up by a New Orleans news source because former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is involved in this initiative as infrastructure coordinator: 

The president will travel to Menlo, Iowa, on Tuesday, a small town about 40 miles west of Des Moines, to discuss the infrastructure law's impact on rural communities, as well as efforts to lower costs for working families and combat inflation.

Other officials participating in the rural tour include Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu.

Biden said that the tour will "double down on our unwavering commitment to building a better America where rural communities thrive."

And here's how the Washington Post and Des Moines Register covered the story today.  Here's the NPR coverage.  

Postscript:  Here is the Daily Yonder's coverage of the Rural Playbook, written by Bryce Oates.