The Rural Brain Drain

In lower Delaware one often hears tales of young people finishing an education and leaving for other parts of the country. The issue is one of national importance as other parts of the nation suffer the same problem these days. In an article in The Chronicle for Higher Education a pair of university sociologists examine the problem and the causes.

The most dramatic evidence of the rural meltdown has been the hollowing out—that is, losing the most talented young people at precisely the same time that changes in farming and industry have transformed the landscape for those who stay. This so-called rural "brain drain" isn't a new phenomenon, but by the 21st century the shortage of young people has reached a tipping point, and its consequences are more severe now than ever before. Simply put, many small towns are mere years away from extinction, while others limp along in a weakened and disabled state.

...hollowing out results from a combination of macro forces reshaping nonmetropolitan America: the unfettered rise of agribusiness and big-box retailing that has suffocated local ownership, the decline of unions and blue-collar wages, employers' increased reliance on exploited undocumented workers, and the systemic underinvestment in younger workers entering the new economy's labor force without college degrees. The rise of agribusiness has meant that there are hardly any farmers left in America's agricultural regions: Just 2 percent of Americans operate farms now, and 42 percent of Midwestern farmers earn less than $20,000 per year. Independent family farmers today live more like sharecroppers, and, as the new film Food, Inc. so powerfully shows, the "Jeffersonian ideal of pastoral life" has been subsumed by a farming system dominated by mega-farms and hog hotels.

What can be done to prevent or to correct this? Education and changes in the way we educate our children today is part of the proposed solution.

The single-minded focus on pushing the most motivated students into four-year colleges must be balanced by efforts to match young people not headed for bachelor's degrees with training, vocational, and assorted associate-degree programs.

Another step involves matching university and community college training centers with local businesses to provide internship opportunities for those students not bound for a four year post-high school education.

There must be national changes, too. Immigration reform is necessary in order to provide a stable workforce in some areas. Immigrants need to be welcomed and encouraged to seek citizenship.

To that end, national immigration policy should also be reformed away from the costly and often counterproductive interdiction efforts toward ones that offer longtime undocumented workers a pathway to citizenship and encourage a more complete participation of immigrants in their home communities.

In the final analysis there is much which must change if we are to reverse the current trend.

The residents of rural America must embrace the fact that to survive, the world they knew and cherished must change. And, on a national level, rural development must be more closely linked to national economic growth priorities, and policies must be created to help these communities prepare for a future that is already here.

We are late in the game, but the final score is yet to be seen. Delaware as well as the rest of the nation must begin to face the problem and to develop solutions which work for our state if we are to lead any part of the future.

Peace.