Search

The need for a larger labor force in Southwest Minnesota is at peak heights and employers are looking for strategies that keep local high school and college graduates in the region. The analysis of 38,154 southwest high school graduates shows that their post-high school paths and plans are related to whether an individual has meaningful workforce participation in Southwest. If their paths and planning for after high school involve programs with regional ties such as attending a college in the region or engaging in career and technical education (CTE) programs, they are significantly more likely to work in the region. However, if their paths and planning take them outside of Southwest, such as attending colleges outside the region, or performing well on ACT and MCA testing, they are significantly more likely to find work outside the region. There is a narrative that outlines what paths and plans students should make for success after high school, but that narrative is outdated. This old narrative, that young people need to leave rural areas to find better job opportunities, is being replaced by a new narrative that better links the educational plans and paths to local workforce demand. In this analysis, CTE programming indicates that having local ties to the labor force and increasing awareness among youth of the local opportunities available is a key part of the path and plans that keep them in Southwest. However, the data also indicates that the old narrative still holds sway: students that plan for and take a path that earns a more "advanced" degree tend to not stay and work in Southwest, despite there being significant demand for their skills locally. These students are pulled to other areas of Minnesota, and in particular, from wherever they graduate college. Adding to the complexity for southwest Minnesota is the increasing competition of border states. In particular, the state of South Dakota has developed an entire recruitment and marketing campaign targeted at our young people in southern Minnesota. And the data indicates that the region is losing nearly 20% of their own students to other states. But it is also known that students are confronted with many messages, narratives and experiences that shape their perceptions of their local opportunities. Although this analysis paints a story of how to move forward, there are likely many other factors at play that can impact Southwest's labor force.

Increasing education funding is a topic of discussion every year at the Minnesota State Legislature. In January, Governor Tim Walz proposed a 4% increase to the basic education formula allowance within the K-12 general education revenue program, the "education formula" that determines the majority of funding school districts receive from the state. Whenever any changes to the general education revenue program are proposed, it brings up an ongoing question--will some districts benefit more than others? To help with this transparency issue, this report examines how an increase to one component of the general education revenue program--the basic education revenue formula allowance--would impact districts across the state, and in doing so, hopefully provides some insight into how the general education revenue program works.

Child care has been in a downward spiral for twenty years and is a main factor exacerbating the growing worker shortage. New attention before and financial aid during the pandemic perhaps slowed the spiral, but it hasn't reversed it. The primary cause of the shortage in Greater Minnesota is simple: family child care providers, who supply the bulk of child care in rural regions, are leaving the field at a much faster rate than people entering it. To better understand what is happening at the local level, the Center for Rural Policy and Development (CRPD) conducted an unscientific survey of economic development officials, local leaders, and other stakeholders around the state in the fall of 2021. The purpose of this report is to identify a sample of projects in progress right now, which will hopefully provide important information on what's being tried, why, and what can be learned from these experiences.