Iowa: A report by the Des Moines Register finds that rural
students are at least as well prepared for college as urban students. The
quality of education at small schools has been under scrutiny by state
officials, but the new analysis shows that on every metric examined rural
students do as well as urban students.
Kentucky: Eastern Kentucky University is launching a new graduate
degree program aimed at improving the quality of rural education in the state.
The program seeks to train people who will become researchers working on
developing new models that help rural schools meet their unique challenges.
Kansas: Climbing
prices for crude oil are making low-yielding wells in rural Kansas profitable again. Many of the wells
scattered across rural Kansas
yield as little as 10 barrels per day. But with oil at $100 per barrel, they
are not only profitable to operate, but the wells are generating meaningful
economic activity in some communities.
Nationwide: News coverage of the nationwide
foreclosure crises is focused on the impacts in urban America. New research indicates,
however, that rural foreclosure rates are on the rise as well. When loans on
mobile and prefabricated homes are included in the calculation, rural
foreclosure rates may be higher than urban rates.
Tennessee: Previously
fallow land is coming into production in Tennessee
and across the South as the price of corn and soybeans remains high. In
addition to putting fallow land into production, land previously in
conservation programs as well as land in cotton production is all being shifted
to more commodity grain production. In Tennessee
soybean acres are expected to rise by 139 percent in 2008.
South Dakota: Grasslands in the state and across
the nation are under pressure due to rising demands for grain production. Much
of this land, currently in the Conservation Reserve Program, is being put into
grain production as the land becomes available. This includes an estimated
300,000 acres in South Dakota
this year and 2.5 million acres nationally.
Oregon: The state-funded Office of Rural
Policy is set to lose its yearly appropriation from the state. The move has set
off a firestorm of controversy over politics, policy, and rural development in
the state.
Contact: Brian Depew, briand@cfra.org, 402.687.2013
x 1015 for more information.
