Jaeden Briley is one of the students facing a fork in the road in northern Michigan. After days that begin on her family’s Montmorency County farm, the 18-year-old leaves for Johannesburg-Lewiston Area Schools, a small district where the options after graduation feel tightly bounded by geography, course access and the pull of staying nearby. Briley says she has been accepted into the University of Findlay in Ohio to study veterinary medicine, but she also sees a competing path in welding—work she describes as offering a better paycheck while keeping her close to home. “I want to stay here,” she said.
Wide swaths of the region have high poverty rates and low levels of college education, and Up North leaders say that shapes both what students can access and what they believe they want. They describe a landscape where upward income mobility is limited and where college is often viewed as a way out—yet rural enrollment in higher education remains low compared with other parts of Michigan. Katy Xenakis-Makowski, the superintendent of the 600-student Johannesburg-Lewiston district that Briley attends, said her school’s mission differs from districts in metro Detroit. “The goal is to build good humans who can hold jobs and support their families,” she said.
A big driver is the structure of rural schooling itself. About 1 in 16 Michigan students—87,000 total—attend school in districts described as rural, with overall enrollment under 1,000. Almost a third of the state’s traditional public districts fit that definition, many of them in regions where visitors come during summer months. The northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula counties with the lowest median incomes are heavily represented in those rural districts, and those communities also tend to have fewer students pursuing college.
Data cited by Up North leaders and advocates points to differences in college-going momentum. In two rural regions—counties east of I-75 in the northeast Lower Peninsula and the six counties of the Thumb—Michigan College Access Network analysis finds the lowest college enrollment and college readiness scores as measured by the SAT. In those areas, just over half, 51.2%, of high school graduates enroll in college within 12 months, compared with 59% statewide.
Schools also describe constraints that can make traditional college-prep pathways harder to sustain. In districts like Johannesburg-Lewiston, there are no in-person Advanced Placement classes because there are not enough students for the courses or a teacher available to run them. Only 35% of districts with the smallest enrollments offer AP classes, compared with 90% for districts with 1,000 or more students. Dual enrollment classes run by video depend on working connections, and delays can occur when colleges cancel sessions; in one example described by the reporting, a snow day call from Alpena Community College left four students enrolled in psychology 101 without work for part of the class period.
Beyond the classroom, families and students face transportation and health-access hurdles that reduce time and bandwidth for school schedules. In Rudyard Area Schools in the Upper Peninsula, reporting describes students missing a full day to see dentists or doctors because drives each way can take several hours, with many relying on the school nurse for specialized referrals. In Posen Consolidated Schools in Presque Isle County, even events like prom carry additional logistical costs, with students needing to drive more than two hours to obtain a dress, according to the superintendent’s account. The districts also report that an estimated third of students in places like Rudyard and Johannesburg-Lewiston do not have access to high-speed internet at home, and teachers say that complicates what they can assign and how students can complete online coursework.
Educators also describe how communities fill gaps when the formal system can’t. Johannesburg-Lewiston middle school history teacher Missy Tallman said she does not assign homework in part because students cannot access resources at home, adding that she does not always know what is happening in students’ lives outside school. Tallman said the staff and families move funds and take care of needs when students cannot afford things like dances or field trips. She compared the district to “a family,” saying students can take care of each other more easily than in larger districts. At Posen, high school students are described as helping school staff who take on multiple responsibilities—setting up lunchtime tables and chairs and also volunteering at the local senior center.
In the policy debate, school leaders say the region’s community culture can be hard to quantify. Rudyard Superintendent Tom McKee described his view of success as including not only academic or professional goals but also helping neighbors when people are in trouble. “My kids’ goals may be to be a doctor or a lawyer or a pediatrician,” McKee said. “But even more so, I want people who, if someone is broke down by the side of the road, one of our kids is going to be helpful.”
Advocates for higher education who grew up in the region say interest in college can decline with distance north on I-75—not necessarily because students don’t value education, but because they encounter social expectations and the practical reality of leaving. Ryan Fewins-Bliss, executive director of the Michigan College Access Network, said he sees a “northern Michigan culture” where residents expect that to get education, they may have to leave to get a job. “There’s also a ‘fancy-pants’ issue with attending college,” Fewins-Bliss said, describing a concern among some that college-bound students will be seen as “too good to be here.” The reporting also cites adult attainment disparities across counties, including Lake County’s lower share of adults with an associate’s degree or higher.
For students considering whether to stay, the calculus often involves both economics and the meaning of everyday life. The reporting profiles Ava Ewing, who attends Posen despite living near two school districts; she said she chose the smaller option even though it meant giving up extracurriculars and classes she could have found elsewhere. She described feeling connected to her community—where she hunts, spends time at a family camp, and can even access cell service in the woods when she drives toward a signal. She said that while she wants something like the big-city experience, she feels she might end up back in a place like her hometown. “People think there’s nothing to do here,” she said. “But there’s water and the woods.”
Up North schools and advocates say part of the answer is creating stronger career-technical pathways that align with what students see locally. They point to differences in career tech offerings between larger and smaller districts, saying 66% of districts with more than 1,000 students offer career-technical education compared with 36% in districts under 1,000. Reporting also cites state spending comparisons showing more money allocated to scholarships and grants for college than to career technical education, alongside a one-time boost in the 2025-26 year intended to expand programs through competitive grants. Decisions on the grants are expected at the end of March, and school leaders worry their students could be overlooked if grant funding concentrates in districts with larger enrollments.
Johannesburg-Lewiston assistant high school principal Dan Serba said the training may matter because trades like plumbing and electrical work can lead to strong earnings. Serba said the next step for many students could be more training in the trades, rather than more emphasis on four-year college for everyone. At the same time, he said the absence of local opportunity can push young people into jobs that barely cover costs. Michigan College Access Network’s Fewins-Bliss urged that any additional funding should come with regional decision-making and school-led control. “It’s got to be regional decisions (on how best to spend funds), and emanating from the schools,” he said. “The minute it looks like the state is doing something, it doesn’t work up there.”
The reporting includes a perspective from Ethan Purol, a former Posen student who now is studying mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and expects to work in aeronautics after graduation. Purol described the shift from his small hometown to the scale of his Massachusetts dorm and said he understands why classmates who could have gone to college chose instead to stay and weld. “If you can get by and you’re happy, why go to college? I can stay here and weld,” he said. Purol said rural life changes what people measure as success, arguing that options are often shaped by what students value and what they can sustain close to home.