It’s no secret that rural America has been overlooked by philanthropy over the years. A 2021 report by the nonprofit consulting firm FSG found that while 20% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas, only 7% of funding from the top 1,200 philanthropies goes to those areas.
Schools across the country have been struggling post-pandemic, but the challenges they face are magnified in rural areas, which typically have fewer resources. And a significant number of young people are impacted: A 2023 report by the National Rural Education Association found that “more students in the United States attend rural schools than attend the 100 largest U.S school districts combined.”
Much of the philanthropic funding for rural schools comes from community and regional foundations. A number of national philanthropies are also making investments in this space; IP will be following up this article with a closer look at some of the funders backing rural education.
While philanthropic funders looking to back rural schools face distinctive challenges and opportunities, rural education giving also reflects dynamics present across ed philanthropy at large — which, as IP reported early this year, is in a state of significant disruption. From shifting priorities and funders prioritizing metrics and measurable impact, to education’s decentralized landscape, funding rural ed — like education at large — isn’t easy or straightforward.
Still, rural education could use more philanthropic attention and support. Schools everywhere act as anchor institutions, providing services including meals and broadband access — a reality brought home during the pandemic. But rural schools play a particularly outsized role in their communities, according to Taylor McCabe-Juhnke, the executive director of Rural Schools Collaborative.
”Schools are often one of the largest employers in rural communities,” she said. “They also provide a space of meeting and community. Not only do they host things like sporting and community events, but where there isn’t a ton of public infrastructure in a small town, they may even host funerals and family reunions. And during the pandemic, we saw some rural schools become vaccine sites. I think it’s important to think of rural schools as more than just schools — they’re the heartbeat of rural places.”
McCabe-Juhnke underscored the role of schools in the future of rural America, a reality reflected in what she sees as her organization’s dual mission. “Rural education is preparing the future workforce and future rural citizens,” she said. “So if you think about rural vitality, that’s going to be a really important piece of the puzzle. We joke that we are a rural education nonprofit, but we’re also sort of a rural economic development group disguised as a rural education nonprofit.”
Challenges
An essential challenge facing rural schools is a basic lack of resources — from public budgets, first and foremost, but also from philanthropy. According to the FSG report cited above, “Rural schools in 12 states are disproportionately underfunded, and rural schools are more expensive to operate because of their limited economies of scale and higher transportation costs.” And all U.S. schools, including those in rural areas, will face additional funding shortfalls when federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars, distributed during the pandemic, end this coming September. The effects of the ESSER fiscal cliff will be most severe for districts serving high-needs students, according to a Brookings analysis.
Tight school budgets mean that funds are short for student supports like school counselors and psychologists. It also means fewer AP courses and extracurricular activities, and less technology, broadband access and equipment required for STEM courses. Allen Smart, an expert on rural philanthropy who heads PhilanthropywoRx, said resource needs run the gamut from the technical to the practical. “If you talk to rural school superintendents, they’ll say, ‘We can’t get bus drivers,’ you know, we’re talking about the bare-bones basics.”
At the same time, rural schools serve a high-needs student population: FSG found that “91 of the 100 most disadvantaged communities in the U.S. are rural.” One in seven rural students experiences poverty, and 1 in 15 doesn’t have health insurance, according to “Why Rural Matters 2023,” a report by the National Rural Education Association.
“Rural schools are often where students in poverty get their services, because there isn’t anywhere else,” said Winter Kinne, the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, based in Missouri.
School districts across the country are facing teacher shortages, and rural areas are particularly hard hit. Retaining teachers is also a problem. Teachers at underresourced rural schools often juggle a range of responsibilities along with their teaching roles, according to Allen Pratt, the executive director of the National Rural Education Association. And not only are salaries considerably lower in rural areas, finding housing can be difficult, and transportation costs are high. “In addition, there is often a lack of what people call ‘secondary amenities’ in rural places,” Pratt said. “Like coffee shops, for example. Young adults may not want to drive 15 minutes for a cup of coffee.”
Rural schools are also experiencing a shortage of school leaders, guidance counselors, nurses and other staff, including mental health counselors. Pratt identified mental health, along with a shortage of teachers, as the two biggest challenges facing rural schools. “If I had to identify two of the greatest needs, I’d say we need ways to grow the teacher pipeline, and more mental health supports — in schools and across the board in rural communities.”
Finally, a large number of rural students do not attend college or technical schools after high school, and many of those who do enroll in postsecondary education don’t remain. According to a brief by the Institute for College Access & Success, “Research shows a 13- to 15-percentage-point gap between bachelor’s degree attainment in rural compared to urban communities, as well as lower enrollment rates for students from rural communities.”
Vermont, a largely rural state, has the lowest college continuation rate in New England, according to Carolyn Weir, executive director of the J.Warren & Lois McClure Foundation, based in Middlebury, Vermont.
“That means that a low percentage of high school graduates are continuing on to college in the first year to 18 months after they reach high school graduation day,” she said. “That’s true in the aggregate, but it’s also true if we’re talking about any specific population that stands to benefit the most from postsecondary education. So it’s true for low-income students, for students of color, for students with disabilities and for young men. And we are worried that aspirations data is showing that those rates might sink lower in future years, especially among first-generation young men.”
The McClure Foundation is a supporting organization of the Vermont Community Foundation; both are working to make college and career pathways more attainable for Vermont students. They are also working to address the less tangible issue of aspiration and hope for the future, which can be scarce in rural regions.
“Rural communities around the country have experienced economic stratification, negative net migration, and really a declining sense of potential and opportunity in place,” said Dan Smith, president and CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation. “It goes without saying that this is corrosive to community. But every bit as importantly, it’s corrosive to people’s faith in our civic structure.”
… and opportunities
Like the McClure Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation, a number of other organizations and funders are finding innovative ways to address some of the thorniest issues in rural education. In just one example, the Community Foundation of the Ozarks founded the Rural Schools Partnership, a coalition of school districts that have created education foundations to raise private dollars for school needs and special projects.
Rural schools also have significant strengths, as the National Rural Education Association’s 2023 report makes clear. Rural students are more likely to graduate from high school than nonrural students. And rural students experiencing poverty do better in school than their urban and suburban peers. As the report puts it, “Rural areas appear to offset some of the impact of poverty on educational outcomes.”
McCabe-Juhnke of the Rural Schools Collaborative attributes these findings, at least in part, to the enhanced support that rural schools can provide because smaller school populations allow for closer relationships between students, educators and other school staff. In many rural schools, for example, educators teach the same students for more than one year.
“I think that’s such a strength of rural schools,” she said. “I can’t say for certain, but if you want me to take a stab at it, I’d say that success is based on the strength of relationships and support — students feel like they have someone in their corner who’s cheering them on.”
Why rural matters
Philanthropy tends to overlook rural regions of the country for a number of reasons, as IP’s Martha Ramirez outlined in her 2022 article on the subject. One of the primary ones is simple proximity: Most foundations and wealthy donors are concentrated in urban areas. But the shortage of philanthropic funding for rural areas is nothing new. As Allen Smart told Ramirez at the time: “It’s unfortunate that this discussion has been going on forever… If the possibilities of rural philanthropy are to pick up steam or pick up traction, there’s got to be some sustained attention paid to it.”
In addition to the issue of geographic proximity, another barrier to philanthropic funding is one that the McClure Foundation’s Carolyn Weir calls the “tyranny of metrics.” Having an impact in a rural community — even a very significant one — doesn’t necessarily translate into large numbers.
Weir pointed to a McClure Foundation/Vermont Community Foundation initiative called Free Degree Promise, which creates a pathway to a debt-free associate degree at the Community College of Vermont. Despite its success, the program only benefits what some funders might consider a small number of students.
“There are now students from over 90% of Vermont schools participating, we’re seeing a 70% increase in enrollment in the first two years, and a 30% increase in early college completers actually staying at the Community College of Vermont,” she said. “The cohort includes a significant number of first-generation students and students from low-income backgrounds. We’re hopeful about what that means in terms of young people feeling hopeful about their futures here. But scale right now means about 240 students. Scale really does look different here, and it is the reason that national funders so often overlook rural communities.”
As IP explored in our recent examination of trends in ed philanthropy, there is also the tyranny of timelines: Funders typically want to see results in a measurable period of time, an expectation that is difficult to meet when it comes to a sector as vast and complicated as education. As Nicole Rodriguez Leach, executive director of Grantmakers for Education, said, “Some funders make grants to organizations in exchange for a promise of progress toward a set of goals, or deliverables, within one, two or some other limited number of years. In education, the effects of program interventions or policy advocacy can take much longer than a typical grant’s time horizon… I’ve seen there is often a mismatch between grant terms, expectations and what is feasible.”
On the other hand, a small amount of funding in a rural area can go a long way, as Winter Kinne at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks pointed out. “One thing that national funders may not realize is that it doesn’t take nearly as much money in rural places to do the same or more good,” she said. “Because a $25,000 grant in a community of 5,000 people or less in rural Missouri is amazing, when that could easily get lost in urban Kansas City or urban St. Louis.”
For funders who want to get more involved in rural issues, supporting rural education is a good place to start. “Public education is the linchpin issue in rural economic development,” Kinne said. “If the school is not great in a small town, or if it goes away completely, then so goes the community and the town.”
Of course, schools around the country could use far more public investment. Still, as Dan Smith of the Vermont Community Foundation pointed out, philanthropy can play an important role by showing what is possible in a period when faith in government institutions is low. “We’re at a time when the value of nongovernmental leadership stepping into spaces and demonstrating where progress is possible is going to be incredibly important. There is a lot of incredible work to be done by nongovernmental institutions who want to lead in areas that actually bring people closer together and strengthen communities by narrowing the gaps that exist.”
This is the first of a two-part series; we’ll follow up with a look at some key funders backing rural education.
