By Julie Tesch, CEO & President
Earlier this week, we officially kicked off the CRPD Roadshow, taking our latest research on Pathways After High School directly to communities across Minnesota.
And this is something completely new for us.
Typically, when CRPD releases a new research report, we publish it online, hold a webinar, talk about the findings, and hope people find the information useful. But several months ago, we started asking ourselves a different question: What if we brought the research directly to the people and communities it’s about?
So, we decided to hit the road.
Our Pathways After High School research gave us the perfect opportunity. The project looks at what happens to young people after they graduate from high school in Greater Minnesota, and the data is broken down by region. Instead of asking people from across the state to come to us, we’re going to them.
So, what exactly are we studying?
Every year, students graduate from high schools across Greater Minnesota and begin the transition into adulthood. Some head to college. Others go directly into the workforce. Many move back and forth between education and work as they figure out what comes next.
Those individual decisions add up.
Over time, the paths young people take help shape a region’s workforce, economy, and population. And as communities across Minnesota face major demographic changes, understanding where young people go after high school—and what brings them back or encourages them to stay—is becoming increasingly important to the future of our communities.
That’s what this research is designed to help us understand.
First stop: Fergus Falls
We kicked off the Roadshow this week in Fergus Falls, where we were hosted by Lakes Country Service Cooperative.
At the event, we unveiled our Northwest Minnesota regional report, giving people an opportunity to dig into data specifically about their part of the state.
Using data from the Minnesota Office of Higher Education (OHE), Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), and Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), our researchers examined records for 65,650 individuals who graduated from school districts in the region between 2008 and 2023.
That gives us a remarkable window into what happens after students leave high school—and what those pathways mean for the communities they came from.
But the Roadshow isn’t just about presenting numbers on a screen.
At each stop, we’ll share the regional findings and then bring the research to life through a conversation with local experts in workforce development, higher education, and secondary education. We want to hear what they’re seeing on the ground, where the data matches their experiences, and where there may be more to the story.
And that’s really the point of taking this research on the road: the data can tell us what is happening, but conversations with people in the region can help us better understand why.
By the time we’re finished, we’ll have made ten Roadshow stops across Minnesota. Each event is open to the public, and you’re welcome to join us for one—or follow us to several!
You can find the Roadshow schedule, regional research, and registration information at www.ruralmn.org.
I hope to see you somewhere along the road this fall!