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As Wisconsin hollows out access to liberal arts and higher ed, experts warn of education “desertification” barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

One H-2A worker from Mexico, Juan Carlos Santiago Rincon, died July 8, and a second from Jamaica, Earl Edwards, died on July 31. barnraisingmedia.com/as-grow…

In 2013, the Labor Department certified 98,821 H-2A jobs; in 2025 it certified 398,258 jobs, about a four-fold increase. Moreover, the positions tend to be concentrated with the largest farm operators (those with 500 or more jobs) who obtained about 30% of H-2A certified jobs even though they represent 1% of all employers. barnraisingmedia.com/as-grow…

The rapid expansion of H-2A visas has allowed corporate farms to pit workers against each other. Yet workers are standing together. barnraisingmedia.com/as-grow…

Each year, members of the farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justicia hold a five-mile march to remember the deadly trouble that ended the life of one H-2A worker, Honesto Silva, a 28-year-old married father of three. Over the past decade, federal policy has allowed the number of temporary farmworkers like Silva to increase fourfold. Corporate farms, as a result, have used the program to undercut domestic workers and unions, while dismantling the few protections that exist for H-2A workers. Despite this attempt to divide laborers, farmworkers and advocates are finding new ways to stand together. barnraisingmedia.com/as-grow…

Rural voters nationwide make up roughly a fifth of the American electorate, even as they live across communities that can be more difficult for campaigns and civic organizations to reach. barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

Reaching them is the hard part barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

Rural Americans are one-fifth of the electorate, enough to swing elections where the candidates are running neck and neck. So why do campaigns struggle to reach them? Rural organizers tell Barn Raiser’s reporter about long drives to drop boxes, vanishing local newspapers, expanding civic deserts and disenchanted voters who wonder where the candidates or their respective parties were the rest of the year. barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

To mark Boo U’s closing, instructors and students held a celebration to pay tribute to the school. Among the guests: members of the very first graduating class, who received their associate degrees in the 1970s, two years after the school opened. barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

Democracy can’t just be something to ask people to defend. We have to rebuild the places where people actually practice it. barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

In recent years the pace of colleges shutting down has ticked up. According to analysis by the Hechinger Report, colleges are now closing at a rate of nearly one per week. barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

As Wisconsin hollows out access to liberal arts and higher ed, experts warn of education “desertification” barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

Democracy can’t just be something to ask people to defend. We have to rebuild the places where people actually practice it. barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

Experts warn the recent demise of two-year colleges, driven by years of budget cuts and state policy, represents a “desertification” of education for rural and first-generation students. barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

For many Americans, democracy is an abstraction. In rural Indiana, one organizer learned the erosion of civic institutions meant it was difficult to organize in support of democracy as a concept. She discovered people first needed to to experience democracy as something active and worth protecting: a system they participated in to shape the world around them. barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…

With their focus on the liberal arts, Wisconsin’s two-year transfer colleges have long provided an accessible on-ramp to higher ed for rural and first-generation college students. Experts warn the recent demise of two-year colleges, driven by years of budget cuts and state policy, represents a “desertification” of education for rural and first-generation students. barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…

As Wisconsin hollows out access to liberal arts and higher ed, experts warn of education “desertification” barnraisingmedia.com/gutting…