​​​Nuria Martinez-Keel

Madill, Oklahoma, is hardly the land of plenty. The town, tucked on the north side of Lake

Texoma, has under 4,000 citizens, a few restaurants and event fewer opportunities.

 

Spencer Bond, a 2011 Madill High School graduate, said students from the town go in different direction when they graduate.

 

Several of Bond’s high school friends immediately entered the workforce. Plenty of his football teammates and other friends went to college.

 

“There’s quite a few that actually went,” Bond said. “But a lot of them didn’t finish.”

 

Like many from rural towns, only a minority of Bond’s graduating class ended up with a college degree. Low rates of college-educated people are hurting rural communities and the state economy.

 

Only 14.2 percent of citizens in Marshall County have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census.

 

Marshall County’s percentage is well below Oklahoma’s average of 23.8 percent and that of the United States at 29.3 percent.

 

It’s even lower than the county’s 18 percent poverty rate.

 

Marshall County is no anomaly. In 52 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, fewer than 20 percent of the residents have a college degree, according to Census data.

 

Counties across the state are full of small towns like Madill. Few of their residents have any education past high school. Their livelihoods depend on manual work or basic jobs.

 

Most of the work options in Madill are at local diners, manufacturing plants and ranches and farms, Bond said. It’s almost exclusively blue-collar work.

 

The state government and universities are trying to keep more young people out of factories and restaurants by promoting college classrooms. It has implemented programs to increase student interest in higher education. Universities send out recruiters to every nook and cranny in Oklahoma, leaving no stone unturned.  

 

Bond left Madill to attend East Central University in Ada on a football scholarship. He will graduate with a degree in kinesiology in May.

 

After completing his bachelor’s degree, he said he plans to work as a graduate assistant at another college athletic department while he works toward his master’s degree in athletic training.

 

“So long as I’ve been (at ECU), more people are actually excited about what they’re doing with their lives and trying to do good stuff and wanting to contribute and better themselves,” Bond said. “In high school they were like, ‘Oh we’ve just got to do this because we have to.’ Nobody really wanted to. Nobody really cared, I guess, either.”

 

Bink Stafford, former Madill Public Schools superintendent, said the school implemented programs and policy to change that mindset.

 

The high school works with the surrounding colleges to provide concurrent enrollment, Stafford said. All juniors at the high school are also required to take the ACT.

 

Stafford, who now serves as the high school’s athletic director, said students are encouraged to get athletic scholarships. Without athletics, many students would not be going to college, Stafford said.

 

Bond counts himself as one of those students. His football scholarship helped him achieve his academic goals.

 

“It would be really hard to go to school without having an athletic scholarship,” Bond said. “Even though ECU is super cheap, it would still be hard to kind of get all the money to go to school, so it’s really the main reason that I’m in college.”

 

Madill High School uses the federally sponsored GEAR UP program to prepare students for higher education. Stafford said the program helps Madill students tour nearby colleges.

 

“I can tell you us being with the GEAR UP program and every kid taking the ACT as juniors is one of the most important things that we’ve done,” Stafford said. “A kid sees where he is, what he can do, see what the potential is, and it’s been more of a positive than a negative on where kids are.”

 

Madill High School is one piece of the statewide efforts to encourage students to pursue higher education. Many of the targeted students are from rural areas.

 

Kyle Wray, the vice president of enrollment management and marketing at Oklahoma State University, said the institution has a specific marketing plan for rural communities.

 

OSU has admissions counselors who are assigned to specific regions in Oklahoma, Wray said. They present at high schools in every corner of the state and focus on rural areas as much as urban schools.

 

“That’s where our roots are,” Wray said. “That land-grant mission and reaching out to those students in rural counties is of critical importance to us, and we will never forget that.” 

 

Wray said one of the main principles of a land-grant university is to share the institution’s final product – its graduated students – with the state’s communities. College-educated citizens can go back to their small hometowns and contribute to the cities’ development.

 

“Those cities benefit from the education that’s been gained by those students here, and it’s passed on to those people in the towns whether its in a business or whether it’s in agriculture or whatever the case may be,” Wray said.

 

Those benefits aren’t limited to small towns. Tony Hutchison, the director of strategic planning, analysis and workforce and economic development for the Oklahoma Regents of Higher Education (authoritative source), said having more college-educated people can benefit the whole state.

 

States with more college-educated people typically have higher per capita incomes, Hutchison said.

 

Colorado, California and Washington are a few examples of high-college-attainment areas. These states saw increases in per capita income as more highly educated people moved there for jobs in technology, Hutchison said.

 

Today, each of those states has a higher per capita income than Oklahoma.

 

Colorado has the highest per capita income of the four states with $31,674, according to the Census. Washingtonians earn $31,233 per capita with California right behind at $29,906. Oklahoma’s rate trails with $24,695.

 

Over 30 percent of citizens in Colorado, California and Washington have at least a bachelor’s degree. Colorado leads by a wide margin with 37.5 percent, according to Census data.

 

Not a single county in Oklahoma has a higher percentage than Colorado’s state average.

 

Having more Oklahomans with college degrees would help the state economically, Hutchison said. Many well-educated people, such as engineers or lawyers, take part in the high-level workforce. Members of the high-level workforce earn higher salaries, which in turn benefits the state through taxes.

 

Bond, for example, can expect to earn a median income of $43,370 per year as an athletic trainer, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That salary trumps Marshall County’s median household income of $39,028.

 

The Regents for Higher Education are trying to garner more interest in post-secondary education through various programs, Hutchison said.

 

The state holds training sessions for high school counselors from rural areas. The OK College Start website provides advice and college applications for high school students.

 

GEAR UP gives grants to rural areas that have low percentages of college graduates, Hutchison said. State employees help students fill out FAFSA forms and decide which college classes to take.

 

Rural areas need more high-level jobs, Hutchison said. Instead, these communities are made up of blue-collar workers. Their city economies are dependent on labor industries.

 

Now these areas are falling victim to changing times.

 

“Generally, the trend in the global economy has been toward automation and reduction of manual jobs as we move from a manual economy, regardless of whether it’s farming or manufacturing or finance, to knowledge-based economies,” Hutchison said. “Rural areas have probably suffered more in that.”

 

Additional opportunities come with a degree. Bond said he plans to take advantage of his work options outside of Madill. He said he’d like to retire in Madill but would rather build his career at small college in another city.

 

Bond said when he visits home he realizes he will be one of the few there to graduate from college.

 

His friends who went to work after high school have good lives, he said. But Bond has options the others don’t because of his education.

 

“I’m really glad that I actually got to go to school and get my degree,” Bond said. “That way I can do a lot more stuff than just stay in Madill and not be able to get to go places and do different things.”