Stemming the "Brain Drain" in rural Iowa

During the past 50 years, Iowa ranks in the bottom three of all states in population growth.  The decline in population growth has been especially felt in rural Iowa.

Kirkwood Community College's Steve Ovel told a Decorah audience on Friday that too much attention has been paid to the question of why young people leave small towns in Iowa--and not enough attention has been paid to the question of how young people who don't leave town differ from the ones who do.

Ovel suggested that the book "Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What is Means for America," by Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas, has some good suggestions.

The authors moved to a Northeast Iowa town of 2,000 residents and lived there for a year, interviewing the residents.  They concluded that the rural educational system spent too much time and effort teaching college-bound students and not enough time and effort teaching skills to non-college bound students. 

Ovel pointed to a program run by Kirkwood Community College in Monticello, Iowa as one possible answer.  The Kirkwood facility is a cooperative program with eight high schools in the Monticello area.  It provides 16 career programs and also provides job skills training to adults through night classes.  Ovel says the rural school districts couldn't afford the technical programs on their own, but could afford them when they joined with other schools districts and Kirkwood.

Ovel says the program has not only won the support of the school districts but has been greeted warmly by area employers.  That's because, even though the economy is said to still be struggling, many Iowa employers are having trouble finding skilled employees.  By concentrating on teaching job skills to non-college bound students, rural areas can ensure the economic growth necessary to keep small towns vibrant.

Ovel says such programs can work, but they require a change in thinking on the part of rural leaders.  "Right now in rural communities, we're sewing the seeds of our own destruction," says Ovel.