Across Southern Indiana, high school graduations are followed by a familiar goodbye. Young adults pack up, head to Bloomington, Evansville, Indianapolis—or beyond—and many never return.
The reasons are predictable: jobs, pay, culture, opportunity. But the consequences are steep: schools shrink, neighborhoods age, and main streets grow quiet.
It’s easy to feel like this exodus is inevitable. But what if it isn’t?
The Real Cost of Leaving
Ask any local employer and they’ll tell you the same thing: finding skilled, reliable talent in rural Indiana is harder than it used to be. We’re not just losing people—we’re losing momentum. The workforce shrinks, community events thin out, and towns settle into survival mode.
You can only lose so many young families before the tax base cracks, schools consolidate, and emergency services start running lean.
This is not just a “big city vs. small town” issue. This is about whether places like ours still have a future that young people believe in, too.
But There’s a Reason for Hope
One program is trying to change the narrative—and it’s targeted specifically at people with Indiana roots or ties to the state’s colleges.
The Graduate Retention Program from Choose Southern Indiana is offering financial incentives to recent college grads and out-of-state workers who commit to staying in one of the participating counties—including Greene, Dubois, Daviess, Martin, and others.
Program Highlights:
For out-of-state workers: move to southern Indiana and take a qualifying job. For recent Indiana grads: stay local after graduating from an Indiana college.
- Minimum wage: $20/hour
- Minimum work schedule: 24+ hours per week
- Time commitment: 2 years
Must be employed in one of the following counties: Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Orange, or Washington.
It’s a win-win: graduates get a foot in the door, and rural towns get to keep the kind of people who may have otherwise left the area.
👉 Apply here.
So, Will They Come Back?
They just might. But only if there’s something worth coming back to—and if the people who stayed behind keep building something they’d recognize.
This program isn’t a silver bullet. But it’s a small, smart step toward reversing decades of rural brain drain.
Because when a town invests in its people—not just its infrastructure—it stops becoming a place people flee, and starts becoming a place people fight for.