PIKEVILLE, Ky. - Colleges and universities in central Appalachia are struggling to retain students. Roughly half the freshmen at the University of Pikeville don’t come back the following year. For the students who stay, many wonder if there will be jobs available in a region that for decades relied on coal mining as its primary industry.
“We feel like if you can teach them in the mountains, train them in the mountains, they’ll stay in the mountains,” says James Hurley, President-elect of the University of Pikeville.
