Expanding Education and Workforce Pathways for Rural Learners

For many learners from low-income backgrounds, finding a credential or training program that offers a clear return on their time and money is difficult. Today’s learners need more postsecondary education and workforce training pathways that are flexible, time and resource efficient, and lead to upward mobility. But learners from rural communities face a particularly tricky set of barriers that may prevent them from accessing, succeeding in, and navigating these pathways.

Expanding accessible education and training opportunities — such as sectoral workforce training programs, apprenticeships, and community college baccalaureate programs — is essential to supporting rural learners’ aspirations for upward mobility. In rural areas where the postsecondary options may be limited, these initiatives open new avenues for rural learners to advance economically while helping address labor market gaps and support regional economic development goals.

Increasing those opportunities in their communities requires engaging rural postsecondary education institutions, local employers and industry groups, and state-level policy actors. Each of these stakeholders plays a critical role in building, strengthening, and sustaining postsecondary education and workforce training programs that deliver positive returns.

Ascendium’s rural grant partners exemplify this multifaceted approach. They work across systems and sectors to ensure that learners have direct, reliable pathways to quality jobs in their communities, along with the wraparound supports necessary to pursue and succeed in these pathways.

Coalfield Development Corporation

Many rural communities across the U.S. have experienced dramatic economic, social, and demographic changes over the past decades. These shifts have been particularly challenging for communities where extractive industry has historically dominated the economy. With these changes come opportunities, along with the necessity of creating new pathways to family-sustaining jobs in growing industries. Coalfield Development Corporation is a West Virginia-based organization addressing those challenges in a region of the U.S. that has been especially hard hit by the loss of industry and population. With a goal of revitalizing Appalachian economies, Coalfield works with both individuals and local employers, offering free training programs ranging from industry-specific certifications and short-term programs providing immediate employable skills in in-demand fields, to longer-term paid work-based learning and wraparound support programs in partnership with a network of committed employers.

Patrick and Henry Community College

As part of the Rural Guided Pathways Initiative, Patrick and Henry Community College in Martinsville, Virginia, is engaging employers to understand their current and future needs while also using data to realign or eliminate programs that are no longer in demand or do not provide a pathway to upward mobility. Their work demonstrates how short-term, agile programs born out of collaboration between postsecondary education institutions, local employers, potential employers, and policy makers can set up local talent for success in their community. The local chamber of commerce and the college’s president, Greg Hodges, jointly pitch their ability to tailor short-term training programs to companies’ needs. In this way, they can prove demand from learners and employers alike while providing good jobs for more residents. Since 2022, learners participating in the college’s workforce training program in advanced manufacturing and other industries jumped 44% (Source: Open Campus).

Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges

The Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges (ARRC) is also leveraging cross-sector partnerships to build and deliver new sub-baccalaureate certificate and degree programs targeted to their respective state’s rural workforce needs. By engaging with teams in five states — including higher education, workforce, and economic development state agency representatives — ARRC will support the development and implementation of statewide talent development plans aligned with the needs of local employers. ARRC’s work will center deep engagement with input from the rural communities who stand to benefit and will result in at least four new middle-skill credential pathways in each state. Their Rural Talent Development and Attraction Lab is working towards opening these affordable, job-connected pathways to learners in Fall 2027. This project will also include an evaluative element to inform the states’ ongoing rural pathway expansion and ultimately establish a new model for effective rural talent development and attraction.

Center on Rural Innovation

Driven by the belief that rural Americans should be able to benefit from the growing tech economy, the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) is developing tech talent in rural areas. This work begins with identifying local employers’ needs and designing targeted training for local talent to meet those needs, rather than employers contracting that work out, as well as helping more companies hire workers in rural areas. CORI then designs and implements training programs that focus on the latest technologies and tech opportunities while developing learners’ skills for these higher-wage jobs. CORI is ultimately working to lower the barriers to tech employment by providing access to a combination of training methods, programs, and technologies that learners need to build successful tech careers in their own communities (Source: CORI). 

Ascendium remains committed to addressing the unique needs and opportunities of rural learners across all our grantmaking strategies. Leading this work is Senior Strategy Officer Kirstin Yeado, who provides support across our grantmaking teams to ensure we identify and elevate projects and partners — like those highlighted here within the Expand strategy — that share our commitment to advancing upward mobility for rural learners. Yeado also leads Ascendium's efforts to share learning and engage fellow funders and other partners in growing awareness and strengthening support for rural populations.