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: 3 lessons in finding degree-job alignment
02: Roadside Attractions: What rural students want

01: Postcards

At most colleges, leaving skid marks while drifting in the parking lot might earn you a suspension.

At the University of Northwestern Ohio, it may just make them champions.

Home to drag racing and drifting clubs, plus one of the most prestigious competitive autosports programs in the country, the university isn’t just blowing smoke — it’s actually filling significant manufacturing industry needs in Ohio and across the United States.

In fact, the rural university has helped the small city of Lima become a beacon for successfully aligning degree programs to future career paths, according to a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education Workforce.

“It is one of the few communities where credential production aligned with blue-collar work exceeds projected demand,” says Zack Mabel, a Georgetown research professor of education and economics who contributed to the “Great Misalignment” report.

That report found that half of local U.S. labor markets need to shift at least 50% of their middle-skills credentials to better match projected labor demand through 2031. Rural regions in particular are struggling to align credentials with in-demand fields, making Northwestern Ohio’s 95% alignment score even more impressive.

Earlier this summer, I took a road trip up Interstate 75 to explore the contours of this “Great Misalignment.” While previous newsletters focused on areas of high misalignment — including Central Michigan and Eastern Kentucky — there are also significant lessons to be learned from alignment success stories like Northwestern Ohio.

Lesson #1: Short-term credentials aren’t the only path forward

Immediately, the 2,600-student private university stands out because it’s offering associate’s and bachelor’s degree programs in the trades. That contrasts with a general shift in rural colleges towards micro-credential courses — some as short as just a few weeks — in key fields like construction, manufacturing, and mechanics.

“I don’t think short-term certificates are a lifetime commitment. If I have one skill, and I work that one job, I’m in trouble if new technology or economic downturns lead to that job disappearing. We want people to come out with a well-rounded perspective,” says Dean Hobler, provost of the university’s business school.

Hobler is especially passionate about making sure students graduate with a variety of skills in their toolkit. That’s because he never wants them to be in the position he was when he decided to move into academia: stuck in a job he didn’t like as a diesel mechanic, and unable to switch into another manufacturing field because he lacked the necessary credentials. 

“You don’t want to be 35 years old and feel like you have nowhere to go except to work that you don’t want to be at everyday,” he adds. “I encourage every student to go out as prepared as they possibly can be. Credentials are door openers, and you don’t know at 22 years old what you’ll want to be doing at 52 years old.” 

Lesson #2: Get employers involved early

Northwestern Ohio began as a secretarial college mostly providing support roles for local Lima employers in the 1920s.

It transformed into a national leader in diesel mechanics as workforce needs shifted in the ‘70s, and added the nation’s first high-performance autosports program in the ‘90s with the growing popularity of NASCAR and Formula 1 racing.

As it has evolved over the years, the university has learned how to be intentional in integrating an industry perspective into everything it does.

“All of our faculty have worked in the industries they teach, so they are coming with that practical experience,” Hobler says. 

Admittedly, convincing people working in the trades to switch to teaching can be difficult, given how much more they can make in the field. The university has made its jobs attractive by offering competitive salaries and 3-day weekends, in an effort to give students and faculty more time to spend with their families and friends.

For every major and department, the university has industry advisory boards and other informal touchpoints with employers who help inform the curriculum — an ongoing conversation that has led to the recent formation of specialized programs like robotics and light-duty construction equipment.

Getting their perspective early doesn’t just help university officials know what courses to offer next: it also gets industry leaders to buy-in and contribute what resources they can to make the programs successful.

“In the case of the construction equipment course, there were six employers in the room and they started talking amongst themselves: “I can provide this backhoe,” “I’ve got this equipment here.’”

That level of engagement can be seen in a number of the university’s industry partnerships, including major sponsorships from national brands like Volvo. Their agreements have filled its garages with an impressive fleet of vehicles, from NASCAR race cars and John Deere tractors to Mack and Penske trucks.

Lesson #3: Your ‘no’ is just as important as your ‘yes’

The university is constantly assessing new opportunities to expand programs, but that doesn’t mean it will do so flippantly. Every decision to add a new curriculum is centered around a cost-benefit analysis of whether it will lead to a meaningful payoff for the students in the program.

That focus was showcased in the ‘80s, when Northwestern Ohio briefly started a motorcycle engineering program but decided to cancel it after just a few years after administrators realized that the students weren’t getting paid any more than if they had just joined a bike garage right off the street.

More recently, the university got the curriculum and framework for a power line technology program approved, but decided to press pause after deciding it wouldn’t serve its students effectively — most power companies have their own preferred training programs in-house, which means the university’s graduates might not benefit as much from a linesmen degree program.

“We parked it and we’ll let it sit there until we take it off our list or, if we can find something similar that fits with it in the future, we’ll modify it,” Hobler says.

02: Roadside Attractions

• STARS Network doubles. Byron Trott, the rural Missouri-born banker behind BDT & MSD Partners, is giving $150 million over 10 years to expand on last year’s $20 million investment into the Small Town and Rural Schools (STARS) College Network, which will expand from 16 to 32 higher ed institutions.

  • The program was extremely active in its first year, reportedly helping facilitate visits to 1,100 rural high schools in 49 states while connecting with 1.6 million people, with more than 288,000 students ultimately joining the STARS network.
    

• FAFSA extravaganza: Kentucky is facing a 13% decline in FAFSA completion this year compared to last year. To help students fill out the financial-aid application this summer, state higher-ed leaders are hosting a 12-hour virtual and in-person FAFSA event on Aug. 13. The program includes individual FAFSA support as well as games, celebrity guests, and lots of snacks. 
  

• What college leaders should know. Rebecca Koenig of EdSurge interviewed four students from rural areas to learn about the challenges they faced in getting to college and what efforts they found helpful in overcoming those obstacles.
  

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