Onalaska, an unincorporated town about halfway between Portland and Seattle, made the news in 2017 when all 43 of its high school seniors had been accepted to college. That’s remarkable in a community where fewer than 16 percent of the population have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Not only that, but more and more college graduates are coming back to town to raise families, Kaitlin Gillespie reports for The Hechinger Report.
“And at the heart of that growth, former students and community leaders say, is the high school,” Gillespie reports. “This is a town of Friday night football games, of stargazing on the school’s soccer field, of fishing in the pond connected to the school. In its efforts to prevent students from leaving forever, to provide a public space for all residents to use and improve access to nearby natural resources, the school has built a sense of community.”
That’s consistent with a 2015 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that found that close-knit communities and good schools play a big role in attracting and keeping residents in small towns, Gillespie reports.
The strategy is paying off: the number of residents in their 20s and 30s has doubled in the past five years, and school enrollment rose 14 percent, with elementary enrollment rising the most.
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2OIq7xA How one Washington town battles rural 'brain drain' - Entrepreneur Generations
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