Thousands of rural schools nationwide are confronting a precarious financial future, as ongoing phenomena like declining student enrollment and staffing challenges converge with Trump administration policies that threaten funding and resources.
Key federal funding streams have already been cut or could be reduced in the coming months. States’ fiscal support varies in its attention to rural schools’ unique needs. And the changing population of rural communities requires new approaches to education—and policies that facilitate them, according to a new analysis published today by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
Roughly 20% of the nation’s public school students attend K-12 schools in rural areas, according to federal data. Just shy of half of all rural students are eligible for free and reduced meals; close to one-third are students of color; and the population of English learners in rural schools has grown in recent years to more than 3%.
Advocates emphasize that rural schools should be recognized not only for their unique challenges, but also for the positive opportunities they afford to students and families—tight-knit communities, scenic geography, small class sizes, and strong staff-parent connections in schools.
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., emphasized this duality during a briefing on rural education hosted by the nonprofit ResearchEd on Capitol Hill earlier this month. She recounted growing up in rural Dallas County, where her mother was the librarian at Selma High School, and her father was the school’s men’s basketball coach.
“Growing up in a small town can give you confidence,” she said. “I never wanted for anything.”
That was a blessing, but also a setback, Sewell said at the June 10 briefing. When she arrived at Princeton University, she was “woefully unprepared on some level” to be surrounded by wealthy kids who had had access to opportunities she had never imagined.
“The disparities rural students face in accessing core and advanced coursework highlight deeply rooted issues of locational, economical, and educational inequities,” says the CAP report, written by Bri Crawford, Paige Shoemaker DeMio, and Sara Partridge. “Despite these challenges, the resilience of rural communities coupled with strategic and innovative solutions can create a more equitable education landscape that better equips rural students for postsecondary success.”
But even as rural educators work to find new ways to expand opportunities for students, they also have to contend with the turbulence of education funding under the Trump administration.
Districts hope a delayed federal funding stream is on the verge of revival
Thousands of rural schools have been scrambling for months to plan for the possibility that a small but crucial stream of federal funding—the Secure Rural Schools Act—will stop flowing.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, first approved by Congress in 2000, supplies federal funding—$250 million in the most recent annual round—to counties that encompass federally owned forests. Counties then send a large chunk of that money to their school districts, which can use it to pay for everything from paying teachers to replacing HVAC systems.
The law requires reauthorization every two years. The Senate passed the latest version last fall, but the House failed to do the same by the Dec. 31 deadline.
Ever since, rural school advocates have been lobbying lawmakers to restore the funding and prevent an interruption to services. The law is now on the verge of being revived—it’s included in the House-approved version of the massive tax and budget package colloquially called the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and the Senate on June 18 passed separate legislation reauthorizing the program.
Until President Donald Trump signs the reauthorization into law, though, districts still have to prepare for the possibility of not getting the money, which could mean laying off teachers and counselors, canceling dual-credit programs, and postponing road improvement projects designed to help students get to school more safely. These changes would be especially painful for rural schools that often struggle to find qualified candidates for open positions who are willing to move to their communities.
Most districts, by law, would revert to collecting a portion of timber revenue from within their boundaries. But in some cases, that would mean a drastic reduction in funds. Idaho County, Idaho, for instance, would go from collecting $5.7 million a year to just over half a million dollars.
Other federal funds are late or already canceled
Disruptions to federal funding that have already played out during the second Trump administration haven’t spared rural schools.
District leaders waited anxiously for two months with no word on why the standard application materials for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) hadn’t arrived in their inboxes in March as usual. When the application finally arrived on May 14, it gave districts less than half the usual amount of time to send it back.
The REAP program consists of two funding streams that collectively supply more than $200 million a year for hundreds of small and rural districts to spend on a wide range of priorities, including teacher salaries and instructional materials.
Some districts are required by law to give layoff notices now to employees who won’t have a job next school year. An even larger number risk missing out on the best candidates this spring if they lack firm assurances that they’ll have the funding to hire for certain positions.
Meanwhile, rural schools have also been affected by sweeping cuts to federal grants that were already awarded. When the Trump administration abruptly wiped out more than $1 billion in mental health grants in May, the rural district in Skowhegan, Maine, was forced to choose between laying off three licensed counselors or making cuts elsewhere in the budget.
“I was disappointed—just devastated for the kids, honestly,” one of the counselors, Jordan Chighali, told NPR.
The Trump administration’s budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, meanwhile, pitches even steeper cuts affecting rural schools. REAP would be zeroed out entirely, as would programs like the $150 million Full-Service Community Schools investment that includes federal mandates to set aside a portion of the funds for recipients in rural areas. It’s unclear whether the consolidated funding program that would replace those sets of grants would include those same requirements.
The proposed elimination of funding streams like Title III for English learners and Title I Part C for migrant students, as well as level funding that lags inflation for programs like Title I for students from low-income households and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for students with disabilities, would also touch rural schools that enroll eligible students.
Navigating all of these developments while trying to run a school system has been virtually impossible, said Rodney Simpson, the assistant superintendent of the 1,300-student North Putnam district in Indiana, roughly 50 miles west of Indianapolis. Often, he finds out about notable funding developments from news coverage, just like the general population.
“I just hear things,” Simpson said. “It’s kind of hard to know and plan.”
More generally, massive staffing cuts at the U.S. Department of Education could complicate efforts to properly categorize rural schools to make them eligible for the aid they need, said Devon Brenner, president of the National Rural Education Association and a professor of rural education in the Social Sciences Research Center at Mississippi State University.
Education Department staffers typically use Census data to make distinctions between fringe, distant, and remote rural districts. The distinctions can be blurry, but policymakers and researchers alike depend on them to understand and support the needs of rural schools.
“We depend on those locale codes to help us say specifically, ‘Did things work for rural students?’” Brenner said.
Fierce debate over public lands leaves rural schools wondering where they stand
The administration’s new approach to rural public land could also affect schools.
On his first day in office, Trump rolled back environmental protections that prevent disruption to federal land—close to three-tenths of the entire country. This winter, his administration laid off thousands of workers at the U.S. Forest Service and installed a former timber lobbyist as the head of the agency. Some of those workers have since been reinstated, though some remain on administrative leave and many are pessimistic about getting their jobs back.
More recently, Republicans in Congress have pushed for a bill that would facilitate the sale of millions of acres of federal land, either transferring it to state control or putting it in the hands of property developers.
All of these actions could be pertinent to rural schools, many of which depend on federal support to make up for the tax revenue they can’t raise from public lands including national forests.
An increase in timber harvesting led by private industry could result in an increase to local funding for rural schools. But if states were to assume ownership of federal land, that could further squeeze already-tight state budgets. Montana, for instance, would have to invest an additional $8 billion a year to maintain all the land in its borders that’s currently owned by the federal government, according to an April report by natural resource groups.
Efforts to reduce the amount of land under federal control have hit roadblocks on several fronts. The U.S. Supreme Court in January rejected a bid by the state of Utah to argue that public lands belong under state control. A Senate proposal to include the mandatory sale of public lands in the Big Beautiful Bill didn’t meet Senate guidelines for inclusion in a budget reconciliation package, and was removed from the proposal on June 24.
State funding for rural schools is also constantly in flux
The federal government isn’t the only source of funding for rural schools that’s in turmoil.
More than three dozen states supply additional funding—beyond the base amount all public schools receive—to schools in rural areas. That funding helps support efforts to expand course options, create more robust career pathways, and improve pay and benefits to entice workers, according to the CAP report.
But the formulas for doing so vary widely, and states differ on how to define eligibility for their funding programs that serve rural schools.
Some states’ current budget challenges are also affecting their ability to provide support to rural schools. Massachusetts lawmakers appear poised to maintain flat funding for rural schools in the state’s latest budget, even as advocates push for bigger investments. Colorado lawmakers have invested only a fraction of the needed funding for a program that supports rural districts’ efforts to improve and modernize their school buildings.
Private school choice is also on rural school advocates’ radar. Close to 20 states now have programs open to all K-12 students that supply taxpayer-funded subsidies for parents to spend on private educational options of their choosing, according to Education Week’s private school choice tracker.
Those investments are straining budgets in states like Arizona and Florida—even as many rural school leaders point out that their own students can’t benefit from the programs because their communities lack private school alternatives to local public schools.
There are bright spots in state policy for rural schools, though. In March, Utah approved a new funding formula that supplies rural schools with as much as 1.5 times the per-pupil base amount for all of the state’s public schools.
The CAP report also highlights states like Texas that facilitate fruitful partnerships between rural high schools and local colleges.
