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: Balancing rural-urban needs

02: Roadside Attractions: New pathways emerge

01: Postcards

Although higher ed itself is a political football, Americans are increasingly convinced that public universities should be balanced in serving both urban and rural needs.

That’s one key takeaway from a longitudinal study conducted by Ohio State University, which had nearly 400 respondents give their perspectives in 2021 and in 2025.

Four years ago, respondents were asked: ““In an ideal world, who should be prioritized by the public universities in your state: rural or urban communities?”

Back then, 70% of respondents answered that “there should be no difference between how rural and urban communities are prioritized.”

When those same participants were asked the question again this spring, 83% agreed, signaling a continued belief that universities should not favor rural or urban needs more than the other.

“This is true for the vast majority of people, regardless of where they live," says Stephen Gavazzi, director of the Center for Human Resource Research at Ohio State University, whose team conducted the survey.

It’s a particularly intriguing study, Gavazzi says, because the researchers asked the same people the same questions to see how their perceptions shifted.

Nearly all of the respondents who wanted a balanced approach still held that stance four years later — meaning that most of the shift came from people who previously felt universities should favor one geographic region over the other.

When the survey was conducted this spring, 11% of participants believed that rural communities should be prioritized, while 6% believed urban communities deserved higher priority.

To Gavazzi, the study underscores that universities aren’t structured to deliver the balance that the public wants.

“It’s so easy to look at the university structure and realize: We’re not set up for that,” he says.

How expanding extension services could help

Among public universities, many land-grant universities in particular have a secret weapon for rural engagement: extension programs that have connected campuses to farming communities since 1917.

Extension programs bring research-based knowledge and practical education to communities outside traditional academic settings, often allowing people to participate in lectures and workshops even if they’re not enrolled.

The problem? Most of these programs still live in colleges of agriculture, creating silos that Gravazzi has experienced often in his 34 years at Ohio State.

This isn't a new concern for Gavazzi.

In his 2018 book "Land Grant Universities for the Future," co-authored with West Virginia University President Gordon Gee, he called for universities to "get their acts together” and get away from this very old model of community outreach.”

Now he argues the data further validates his point. And the result is a significant missed opportunity.

“People who aren't in the College of Ag say “Isn’t that rural work being done through extensions, isn't that their job over in agriculture?" Gavazzi says.

And when extension programs only focus on agriculture, rural communities miss out on everything else the university offers — from business development to social work to engineering.

Meanwhile, faculty in other departments may focus solely on urban and suburban issues, because they assume extension has rural needs covered.

When extension services do venture into urban areas, Gavazzi notes, "Guess what they do? Urban agriculture."

It makes sense given their expertise, he says, but "why aren't they doing something on leadership development?"

A simple fix, with complicated politics

About 15 states have moved their extension services out of agriculture colleges and into offices of academic affairs. The impact?

"Outreach and engagement in rural and urban areas becomes more uniform across the university," Gavazzi says.

Switching would require universities admit their current structure doesn't match their mission, or what the public expects from them.

“There’s a conundrum here. The university, through extension services, has largely been able to meet rural communities where they need to be met. But the rest of the university isn’t coming with them. It’s just agriculture.”

That disconnect matters more now than ever, especially as rural needs have taken more of the limelight in recent election cycles.

“We’ve seen more understanding of the need to pay attention to rural issues, especially from a political standpoint,” Gavazzi says.

Yet many universities remain in organizational patterns from a century ago, when 80% of Americans worked in agriculture and lived in rural areas, compared to the 20% who do today.

That narrow ag-centered focus doesn’t reflect the current diversity of rural towns and their communities, which have become important hubs for innovation and entrepreneurship.

“What we’re failing to see is the university do what it needs to balance the ledger.”

02: Roadside Attractions

• UW hopes to expand rural pilot program. The pilot focused on outreach to 26 rural students across seven districts, according to the Badger Herald, giving them the opportunity to attend lectures and visit labs while exploring life at the University of Wisconsin.

• Kansas City adds Rural Health Scholars Program. The collaboration of eight community colleges across Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma creates a new pathway for rural students to become osteopathic physicians or dentists.

• Rural Georgia college works to address nursing shortage. This piece by WRBL takes a deeper look into a dynamic playing out across the country, as community colleges partner with local hospitals to address gaps in the health care workforce.

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