For the last few years, economics students at the University of Nebraska have dropped in to small cities across the state, analyzing potential pathways toward making those places more economically viable. This year, those students set their sights on Fairbury.

Earlier this semester, agricultural economics students from the University of Nebraska came to Fairbury's community building to learn firsthand about the strengths and weaknesses of this small city from some of its local experts in industry, politics and business. 

"We want to thank you all for welcoming us, for sharing your experiences, and opening up about your community challenges. Your honesty gave the students a real-world experience in public participation and decision-making, something that no textbook would offer," professor Daniela Mattos said in her opening address to the crowd of about a dozen prominent locals.


And earlier this month, those students returned, presenting those same local leaders with their own research and findings in a presentation titled "Fairbury Economic Revitalization." 


The students, nearly all of whom were natives of Eastern Nebraska towns of all sizes, highlighted Fairbury's community involvement, existing and forthcoming broadband access, and historic preservation efforts as strengths, but stressed that economic stagnation, lower than average wages, and lack of supply of both affordable housing and a steady workforce are latent threats - all things many of the people present agreed have been concerns, and priorities, locally for years.

"Housing and childcare are two of the highest needs that come up on our community needs assessment all the time, so the results I guess weren't a surprise to me," said Shari Weber, CEO of Blue Valley Community Action. "But I do think finding a way to pull people back into our community and working with the youth and getting their input is going to be a huge impact on making a difference here."

"A difficulty we have is I think there is an ignorance about what jobs are available locally," Fairbury city councilmember John Ebke said. "There's some pretty good-paying jobs within the city, within the county, and within industry, but people see higher wages in Lincoln even though cost of living is significantly higher there. So I know we've got some wage gaps, but there's a lot of reasonable or high-paying jobs that are here, but somehow we don't seem to get that into the minds of the kids. They all want to move off and go somewhere else where the fact of the matter is, you can make some significant money here and it costs a lot less to live here than in other places."

The critical part of this course was for the students to present some pathways Fairbury could follow to improving on these identified issues, citing examples of successful solutions implemented recently in other small Nebraska towns: business and housing investments in Ord, relocation incentives in Pawnee City, school-operated childcare programs in Shickley, and even successful grant-based initiatives in recent Fairbury history.

Their conclusions? Fairbury needs to prioritize investing in housing, childcare, downtown revitalization, youth programs and workforce development. 

"Success depends on collaboration - between local leaders, businesses and community members," the students wrote in the final slide of their presentation. "The time to act is now - together, we can build a stronger, more vibrant Fairbury."

Now it's up to Fairbury itself to consider if, and how, to potentially execute those solutions - and where the money for them might come from.

"I think we have to continue meeting, pulling together, and setting action steps to see it through," Weber said. "The room was full of people who have gone for grants, written grants, so pooling those talents together to determine what grant opportunities there are...I think most of the things they suggested are going to take a lot of money, so grants are the way to go, though I believe that might be more challenging now than it was before, but we will see."

On top of this presentation, the capstone of this course was for the students to create a project that would formally present their proposed pathways towards potential improvements. And with Nebraska's spring semester now finished, Fairbury's local leaders will be able to process those final conclusions very soon: Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock reported he expects the group will receive the final report from Mattos' class within the next few weeks.