When we joined Education Design Lab, the Rural College Design and Data Academy was our first project. Rural communities face limited resources and systemic barriers to education and work. But by leveraging emerging learning models, we wanted to help colleges create more equitable, career-driven pathways for rural learners. We expected to learn a lot. What we didn’t expect was to hear the same phrase, over and over, in nearly every community we visited:
“We can’t believe you came all the way here.”
Faculty said it. Administrators said it. Community members said it. The surprise in their voices was genuine.
And our surprise was genuine as well: But of course we came! We understood the importance of these places and the impact their communities have on education. But after 10 campus visits across places like Coahoma, Mississippi; Shasta County, California; and northern Pennsylvania, we started to understand what these people really meant: They couldn’t believe they weren’t being overlooked.
The geography of being overlooked
Rural colleges aren’t just geographically distant from major cities — they’re often distant from the conversations happening about the future of higher education. They’re left out of conference panels, innovation cohorts, and funding opportunities that assume proximity to urban centers or research infrastructure. Further, according to the Center on Rural Innovation, only 3% of philanthropic dollars go to rural communities.
When partners at Northern Pennsylvania Regional College said they were “extremely appreciative” of our visit, or when community leaders in rural Washington expressed shock that we’d invest our time this way, they were telling us something important: showing up matters. And too few people show up for rural communities.
As new Labbies, we didn’t arrive with assumptions about what “usually” happens when colleges partner with nonprofits like the Lab. When we showed up at Motlow State Community College in Tennessee to meet with our cohort at the beginning of the project, we came with completely open minds. Maybe that’s why the surprise felt so stark to us. But it also became clear that this isn’t about occasional visits or check-ins. It’s about whether rural colleges are seen as legitimate sites of innovation at all.
What we found when we actually showed up
Here’s what didn’t surprise us: Rural colleges are innovative. Their staff wear multiple hats and are used to working with fewer resources than their non-rural peers. So, when given the resources, they showed us how creative they could be. Here are a couple of highlights:
Crowder College in Missouri created a persona-driven storytelling campaign that reconnected with adult learners who left college without finishing. Allegany College of Maryland built a mobile 3D model and VR experience to help parents of elementary students imagine college as a possibility. Coahoma Community College is implementing the Tiger Learning Institute (TLI) for Skill Building and Professional Development, which empowers students and educators through targeted skill-building and professional development that address regional workforce challenges by aligning education with local needs and leveraging community partnerships.
These aren’t small tweaks. They’re sophisticated, community-responsive solutions to problems that exist everywhere but are amplified in rural contexts: Geographic isolation, limited broadband, aging populations, and employer needs that don’t fit into neat academic categories. And those employer needs — particularly around skills that transcend any single job or industry — kept surfacing in our conversations.
When we introduced the Lab’s durable skills framework at employer sessions (like the one at Nicolet College in Wisconsin) it resonated immediately. Rural employers understand the value of communication, adaptability, and problem-solving. They hire people who have those skills and struggle when graduates don’t. The gap wasn’t knowledge; the gap was validation and resources.
But the conversations went deeper than programs or frameworks. People asked us questions that revealed how much they were rethinking fundamental assumptions:
- Should we stop using the word “college”? (Because in some communities, “college” signals leaving, not staying.)
- Why do we still separate careers and liberal arts when our learners need both? (Shasta College tackled this head-on, mapping real job outcomes for social science degrees and challenging the false choice between “social sciences or a career.”)
- How do we convince our own institution that the student who wants to open a nine-hole golf course is just as legitimate as the student on a transfer pathway? (That student exists, by the way … at Spokane Community College.)
These are the kinds of questions that only come up when you’re actually in the room, listening. And they led to real transformation: Uintah Basin Technical College in Utah launched a campus-wide data infrastructure and created a Data Governance Taskforce so that decisions could be based on real-time insights, not outdated assumptions. BridgeValley Community and Technical College in West Virginia involved faculty in prototyping dashboards that actually answered their questions. Northcentral Technical College in Wisconsin is leveraging high-quality, county-level microdata and targeted community surveys to identify gaps in rural areas and design evidence-based interventions for workforce and educational advancement.
These institutions are doing the hard work of transformation. And they’re doing it with fewer resources, less visibility, and more skepticism about the value of higher education than their urban peers.
Learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable
As new Labbies leading this work, we’re learning that design isn’t just about creating solutions. It’s about understanding problems deeply first. The Lab’s process taught us to fall in love with the problem … to ask who is currently furthest from a working solution, and to design with them, not for them.
In rural communities, that means recognizing that systems weren’t built for the New Majority Learner-Earner, the learner who’s working full time, raising a family, and trying to upskill for a better job. And it means admitting that decades of “workarounds” haven’t transformed those systems — they just made them more complicated.
One of the comments from our final convening read: “Need to connect with learners. Put heart into your storytelling.”
And at the root of it, that’s what this project taught us. Data matters. Frameworks matter. But presence matters more.
When you show up in Republic, Washington, or Neosho, Missouri, or Smyrna, Tennessee, you’re saying: Your work is important. Your learners matter. Your community’s future is worth investing in. What you pay attention to grows, and for too long, rural colleges haven’t received that attention.
Rural colleges aren’t asking for sympathy. They’re asking to be seen as the anchor institutions and ecosystem leaders they already are. They’re asking for partnerships that recognize their sophistication, not their deficits.
As we reflect on our first project with the Lab, we realize the phrase, “We can’t believe you came all the way here,” wasn’t just about distance. It was about dignity. It was about being treated as equals in a conversation that too often happens without them.
What comes next
We’re working on a Rural College Playbook, a guide for other institutions looking to reimagine outreach, build inclusive partnerships, challenge academic stereotypes, use data strategically, and break down internal silos. It’s full of practical plays and examples from the 14 colleges we’ve partnered with.
But if there’s one thing we want other organizations to take away, it’s this: Go. Show up. Listen. And then act!
Don’t just send surveys or host Zoom calls. Get on the tiny plane. Drive through the mountains and pull over at the overlooks. Eat lunch at the mom-and-pop shop where the owner takes your order. Climb through the canyons. Ask questions. Take notes. Be surprised.
Because rural colleges have stories to tell. And if you’re not there to hear them, you’re missing the most important innovations happening in higher education today.
Matt Newlin and Rachel Wimberly are education designers at Education Design Lab, where they lead partnerships with rural community colleges across the United States.
