Billy Long: New bill will provide tools, support to help rural students achieve success

(From Seventh District Congressman Billy Long)

In Congress, I’ve always advocated to close the rural - urban divide. 

Whether it’s expanding broadband or increasing the number of health providers, it’s clear that rural areas are being outpaced and overlooked. Higher education is no different, and it doesn’t have to be this way. I’ll take our colleges, our students, our communities, and our work ethic any day. 

To make sure our students are getting the education they need, we need to break down barriers to higher education and develop programs tailored at a local level. 

This week, along with Representatives Elise Stefanik and Josh Harder, I introduced the Success for Rural Students and Communities Act to help bridge this gap and improve college access for rural students. We believe that by giving students the tools they need to pursue a college degree we can ultimately create a pathway for success. 

This model is grounded in part on the efforts already underway in Southwest Missouri. In an effort to ensure that rural students are provided the same opportunities as suburban students, Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) launched a partnership with rootED Alliance in 2018 to identify and offer support for rural and at-risk students. 

They created a grant that helped OTC hire two advisors dedicated to ensuring rural students across Southwest Missouri are exposed to higher education opportunities. Early data showed college enrollment at OTC increased by over 10% in the targeted school districts and higher retention rates from fall to spring semester. 

The program’s success moved the partnership to expand this program, and last summer OTC hired four new college and career advisors to work at four local high schools. In the first year alone, nearly 70% of the students reached have been accepted into a postsecondary institution.

This kind of success is what I hope to mirror in rural communities across the country, and I believe this bill will help reach that goal. Part of a student’s ability to succeed in higher education stems from their academic support system such as college councilors in high school and advisors in college. 

This bill provides early support for rural students such as counseling, exposes them to higher education programs, gives them access to dual enrollment, and provides support for them as they transition out of high school and into postsecondary education. 

Additionally, the local partnerships emphasized in this legislation can help create development strategies to connect students with local employers. By tailoring these strategies to the local business environment, we can help our businesses get the local talent they need and get our students the jobs they want.

Students today already face enough obstacles in pursuit of a college degree; their zip code shouldn’t be one of them. This legislation will even the playing field for rural communities and eliminate roadblocks that hold rural students back from achieving their dreams. 

This legislation will help us close the attainment gap that persists between urban and rural communities, and I am proud to work with my colleagues to get this critical bill across the finish line. 

These young students are eager to enter the workforce and I am proud to be part of this bipartisan effort to help these young men and women achieve their academic dreams.