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 from rural Texas
02: Roadside Attractions: Donkey basketball and beekeepers?

A small programming note. I will be on vacation in Southeast Asia for the next two weeks, so the next Mile Markers edition will hit your inbox on September 27!

01: Postcards

I recently spent a week in the Coastal Bend of Texas, having conversations with rural students from all walks of life about their education journeys. 

I was particularly interested in how these mostly rural Texans learned about colleges and careers, and what information they wished was available to them as they entered life after high school.

Here are 3 things I learned.

1. Students are craving an education … in paying their bills

Across the board, rural students told me they were deeply interested in learning how to improve their lives. However, it wasn’t always clear to them that a degree was their pathway to doing so. Part of that stems from the fact that many are frustrated that they didn’t get more of a financial education while they were still in high school.

It would have been helpful to know what pitfalls to avoid, such as “‘Don’t get into this, because you’ll be paying this much back.’ ‘Don’t get this degree, knowing you’re going to be upside down on it,’” says Noah Guzman, who works in a custodian-type role at the visitor center in Port Lavaca, biding his time until he can get a job as an operator at the Formosa Plastics chemical plant. 

Consider Lisa Lopez, 33, and Cristan Lopez, 17, a sister and brother a generation apart yet both considering their options for education. Lisa is currently studying phlebotomy at Coastal Bend community college, while Cristan is a high school senior who hopes to become a chef one day. 

Both wish they knew more about their financial options, but in different ways. Lisa felt like she had no help applying for financial aid or learning about scholarships when she was graduating from Mathis High School. Meanwhile, Cristan is searching for even more basic information. 

“They don’t really touch financial stuff in school, like, how to pay taxes, pay bills. Everybody in my grade is worried about what they’re going to do after graduation” where will I live, can I afford to rent an apartment? Financial stability is probably the biggest issue we’re going to face after we get out of school.”

While millennials like Lisa once wondered about how to afford the cost of college, Cristan and many of his Gen Z peers worry about how to afford the cost of simply living. 

“If I wanted a guide for life after high school, the most useful information would be about what kind of housing you can get — types of apartments in your price range, something you can afford — and what jobs they offer close to any college you might attend,” Christan says.

2. TikTok and YouTube are the new “try before you buy”

Lisa was a high-school senior in 2009 and got her GED during the Great Recession. That played a role in her having a host of jobs in her twenties, from working restaurants and gas stations to a local newspaper and library.

She only recently got onto a more long-term career path, a process that began when a friend sent her a Facebook ad for “Continuing Education” with UpSkill Coastal Bend, a nonprofit collective focused on encouraging workforce training and education in the region.

At first, she was set on becoming a nail technician. Then she shadowed a friend and realized it wasn’t for her. When her UpSkill navigator told her to consider phlebotomy, she started watching YouTube and TikToks to get an idea of what the work, and pay, would be like.

“If I need to learn anything, I’m just going to go to TikTok,” she says. “Social media teaches you everything you need to know.” 

Some of the most popular TikTok videos are now “Day in My Life”-style vlogs. While some may portray unrealistic influencer lifestyles, many are focused on showing people the good and bad of various careers.

Chase Perry has found social media useful in finding his path, too. Despite having some teachers who tried to help him, he faced housing insecurity and was in-and-out of school while growing up in Houston. He got his GED while in juvenile detention and quickly had to find a way to pay the bills once he was released.

Now the 22-year-old works as a technician for a company that contracts to do sandblasting, metal cutting, chemical cleaning, and other work for manufacturing plants and warehouses.

Learning how to be self-taught became key to his survival. “I'm on Instagram a lot getting more information. But once I've heard about something and want to really learn about it, then I'll go to YouTube and look it up, watch an extended video on it.”

3. Word of mouth starts at home

Countless times, rural students have told me that they made their decisions about pursuing different careers based on the advice of family members or close friends. It’s a trend I also noticed when I visited the Rio Grande Valley in 2022, a place where most felt like they only had four career options, and three of them came with a gun. 

When Ivan Medina graduated from high school in Laredo, Texas in 2019, he already had a 1-year-old d

aughter and needed to start making a paycheck. 

He started out with trucking because a cousin of his did it, and made good money for two years before deciding the road was a bit too lonely for him. Next, he chose to join the Army, in part on the advice of two other cousins of his who were in the military. He now works as a mechanic in rural Killeen, Texas.

Very little of his information about college or careers came from the web or from school advisors. “I was just asking everyone I knew about jobs, education, etc,” he says. 

Friends matter, too. Medina says he had two groups of friends: those who got in trouble, and those who were gamers. 

“Thankfully, all I wanted to do was stay home and play games with those friends, rather than gonna go out and possibly get involved in something that wouldn't be good for me.”

02: Roadside Attractions

• “They love their small-town roots.” You just have to love a story that manages to include both “donkey basketball” and beekeepers, as this piece by Doug Erickson does. The feature gives a glimpse at the lives of a few rural peer advisors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a member of the nationwide Small Town and Rural Students (STARS) College Network. 

• Redefining rural in Montana. In the latest piece of the excellent EWA-sponsored “The Rural College Project” series, the Flathead Beacon explores how Montana’s community and tribal colleges are working to expand their program offerings in the hopes of curbing “the drain of young, rural talent.” 

  • Their work is much needed in Montana, where the economy is changing brutally fast, affecting both workforce demands and education needs as I explored when I visited the state last year.

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