Zach Barricklow has seen how powerful community colleges can be in jumpstarting lives and economies in rural communities. As a vice president at Wilkes County Community College, he partnered with local groups to build a strategic plan that lasered in on the county’s challenges, including barriers to student success and better career coaching in high schools.
Through that collaborative process, the college raised $18 million over five years, fueling improvements, boosting post-high school enrollment rates to the highest in years and doubling the graduation rate. Today, as associate vice president for strategy and rural innovation for the North Carolina Community College System, Barricklow is looking for ways to replicate that success across the state.
“When we engage with employers now, especially in these fields where they’re starving for good talent, we need to, right up front, have a pathway to employment, a pathway to advancement, a pathway to a living wage and thriving wage scenario. We can’t leave that to chance.”
Zach Barricklow
“My hope is that over the next few years we live into our legacy as a state of educational innovation and rural development,” said Barricklow, who also sits on the N.C. Rural Center’s board of directors, “and we become a model for the country on how to support and leverage a rural community college network to really bolster rural community development, rural community and economic development.”
Education and workforce training for people who live or work in rural communities are among the Rural Center’s four advocacy pillars, along with healthcare, small business support and infrastructure. The Center long supported the work of the community colleges in rural communities.
First funded in 1957 by the General Assembly, North Carolina’s community college system boasts 58 outposts today, making it the largest network of rural-serving community colleges in the country, Barricklow said. Most North Carolinians live within about 30 minutes of a community college.
Originally conceived as a two-year version of a four-year institution, community colleges have proved far more nimble than traditional universities. In North Carolina’s rural communities, they’ve played a primary role in training essential workers like firefighters and certified nursing assistants; served entrepreneurs through Small Business Centers; and stood up short-term credential programs nearly overnight, he said.
But with emerging demographics and rapid shifts to technologies such as artificial intelligence, rural workers and employers have new needs, Barricklow said, and community colleges must stay nimble.
Amid aging rural populations, the focus now is on fully engaging a workforce that has historically been left on the sidelines, he said. That includes individuals with criminal convictions, the disabled, transitioning veterans and fast-growing Hispanic communities.
Community colleges need the resources to serve them effectively, Barricklow said. “There’s this need in this moment in time, both as a country [and] as a state, to really activate all of that talent and get folks into the workforce in meaningful ways.”
Community colleges also must be ready to teach the highly technical skills that employers need. Propel NC, a potential funding model, would help, he said. The proposal steers dollars in new ways to help community colleges fund training programs for high-demand, high-wage sectors such as advanced manufacturing and healthcare. These programs often operate at a loss because they’re so expensive to launch. “That’s going to be particularly helpful to rural colleges that are already strapped for resources,” Barricklow said.
And to promote an adaptable and flexible system, ongoing partnerships between community colleges and local employers are critical, he said. Those direct connections will ensure the curriculum is up-to-date and that programs lead directly to job opportunities. For prospective students, who often are struggling to secure basic needs, that certainty will encourage more to take that first step to sign up for classes and, ultimately, build a better life.
“When we engage with employers now, especially in these fields where they’re starving for good talent, we need to, right up front, have a pathway to employment, a pathway to advancement, a pathway to a living wage and thriving wage scenario,” he said. “We can’t leave that to chance.”