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Many of the comparatively few universities that serve rural students are eliminating large numbers of programs and majors, blaming plummeting enrollment and resulting financial crises. Nationwide, college enrollment has declined by 2 million students, or 10 percent, in the 10 years ending in 2022, hitting rural schools particularly hard. An increasing number of rural private, nonprofit colleges are not only cutting majors, but closing altogether.

Just 81,000 people live in rural Chatham County in North Carolina, where there are more than 1,000 farms. But life is changing. The new Wolfspeed factory that overlooks I-64 will soon produce advanced wafers for computer chips. Automaker Vinfast is scheduled to open a factory next year. Both projects stem in large part from incentives that President Joe Biden signed into law.

Summers were spent at his father’s gas station. Charles Townsend met all sorts of folks while manning the ice house. In the muggy lowlands of Robeson…

Summers were spent at his father’s gas station. Charles Townsend met all sorts of folks while manning the ice house. In the muggy lowlands of Robeson…