We have public education.

by domer.mq , Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 13:02 (2709 days ago) @ CK08

A lot of "real America" didn't see the need to work very hard at taking advantage of it.

A whole bunch of "real America" voted to cut funding of public education (particularly at the college level) so that even public collegiate education is out of financial range of a whole bunch of "real America" who at least bothered to get decent enough grades to qualify for college.

I'm not sure what else we can do.

We could talk about rural broadband access, but the entirety of the benefit of such things counts on students and their families using it to become part of the knowledge economy instead of watching Youtube videos while counting on a job at the local factory.

The more I think about it, the more I think the only real solution is governments incentivizing knowledge-based companies to allow for mass migration of their employees out to more rural areas via remote-work. I could move out to someplace rural, own a shit-ton of land and house, and not have to commute. Get a few hundred knowledge workers into a town and before you know it, you can run a couple restaurants too. And a couple gas stations. Another grocery store. Over a couple of generations, that might start to pay off. I doubt the Trump voters have that patience though.

Edit: I have a real bias here. My mother was a teacher for a number of years in a "real America" town, begging and pleading with students to find a way out of the town b/c that town's mill would eventually go away. Vast majority didn't listen. Many parents would actually get upset about it. So I admit I'm pretty cynical here.

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Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.