Welcome to Mile Markers, a bimonthly newsletter about rural higher education. I’m Nick Fouriezos, an Open Campus national reporter who grew up at the crossroads of suburban Atlanta and the foothills of Appalachia.

Today’s Roadmap

01: Postcards: An employer-first approach

02: Roadside Attractions: DOGE’s impact

01: Postcards

Wallace State Community College, wedged an hour between Birmingham and Huntsville, faced the same challenges as many rural colleges.

Finding great instructors. Adjusting curriculums to fit employer needs. Reaching working students whose education paths aren’t always linear, and showing them the value of a degree.

Yet the Hanceville college has invested in ways that have led to outsize results, including …

• $61,000 average wages for manufacturing and health care certificate earners, significantly more than the area’s median incomes around 40,000.
  

• 51% graduation rate, compared to the 35% national average
  

• 90% employment and licensure rates, also well above national averages

How did this college serving 8,000 students in Hanceville, Ala. get here?

An employer-first model

One key breakthrough has been putting employers at the center of nearly everything the college does, says Vicki Karolewics, President at Wallace State.

“Now, the focus is industry first,” Karolewics said. “Industry presents to us what skills they need, what areas of curriculum would be better suited.”

Take Wallace State’s massive welding center, which had its grand opening in 2023 and includes 81 welding and 20 grinding booths, as well as nine virtual welding simulators and other state-of-the-art equipment.

The college estimated the center would create nearly 100 new jobs and approximately $25 million in payroll revenue to the community in its first eight years — numbers that helped them get both local government and employer buy-in.

Including those stakeholders in the discussion was intentional. In fact, the college created a dedicated role for employer engagement and strategic partnerships.

That person acts as a full-time connector between faculty and local companies, keeping a continuous feedback loop that has helped shape curriculum content and course structures.

When manufacturers flagged upcoming labor shortages, Wallace invited companies to co-invest in the equipment and facilities.

Its led Wallace State to offer one of the most robust welding programs in the state, including becoming the only community college to offer robotic welding courses.

Preparing for Aerospace, and More

Wallace State now serves around 8,000 students a year through academic, technical, and workforce programs, and the college is looking to expansion toward the jobs of the future.

Huntsville city officials expect Space Command to relocate its headquarters to Alabama, which would lead to more aerospace opportunities.

In addition to more aerospace jobs, Karolewics says the college expects growth in engineering, education and healthcare as well.

Like many rural areas, a growing teaching shortage is emerging across the region, which has led Wallace State to launch new apprenticeship programs in nearby K-12 classrooms.

It’s offered similar partnerships with hospitals, to help add to medical support services across north Alabama.

“Stackable Credentials” to Reflect Real-Life Complexities

Rural students often face education journeys interrupted by unsteady income and families that may need their financial or emotional support.

Wallace recognized that, and responded by creating hundreds of stackable credentials that allow students to earn meaningful certifications at any point in their educational path.

“A lot of students stop in and out. It’s not a smooth progression,” Karolewics says. “Now, even if they leave, they leave with value.”

Reducing Wasted Time and Money for Students

The college also worked to transform its academic advising through a Pathways initiative that creates clearer course maps for every program.

"What that has done, it's allowed students to plan their future and it's also eliminated additional hours that they were taking," Karolewics says.

Before, the average student had completed 101 hours at graduation — despite the fact that a typical associate degree only requires a minimum of 60-64 credit hours.

With better advising and clearer transparency around course pathways, that number is now in the low 70s, representing significant savings for students.

Next, the college will be working to create four-year plans that map out not just courses at Wallace State, but also additional two-way pathways that extend to bachelor’s degree programs at transfer institutions.

Still, Wallace State hopes that even those students will invest back in Hanceville.

"Our students have a strong sense of community, and many of them don't want to move to New York or Nashville,” Karolewics says.

By creating pathways to middle-class wages without requiring relocation, Wallace State is helping local students have a real alternative to leaving.

02: Roadside Attractions

• DOGE threatens essential rural services. After DOGE cut over $400 million worth of AmeriCorps grants across the country, rural nonprofits will struggle to survive, according to the Daily Yonder, which took a deep look at the impacts on social services in rural Colorado.

• California struggles to provide mental health. This CalMatters piece by Open Campus local reporter Adam Echelman looks into the challenges rural areas have in finding therapists, with a recent report finding that one-third of California’s residents live in an area with an insufficient ratio of providers to patients.

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