As a follow-up to my pessimistic report on the economic future of Southside and Southwest Virginia, I thought it worthwhile to add a codicil on the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy, located in Buchanan County, which appears to be a very productive deployment of the region’s scarce community development resources.
According to Frank Kilgore, an occasional contributor to the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine, 67 students graduated with pharmacy degrees this May. Two months after graduation, 97 percent of them had found employment — 79 percent of whom had taken jobs in Appalachia serving rural populations in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
The pharmacy college contributes to regional economic development in two ways: (1) it provides a supply of pharmacists willing to practice their profession in central Appalachia, a region that is otherwise under-served by pharmacists, and (2) it keeps the economic activity of providing the educational services in the region. Were it not for the college, would-be pharmacists would have to earn their degrees in Richmond, Chapel Hill or wherever, exporting hefty sums on tuition, room and board to those communities.
This strikes me as a highly productive use of local resources, generating a high return on investment both socially and financially. The College of Pharmacy could well serve as a template for other professional schools that fill the void in professions which many poor and isolated communities find themselves unable to fill. (For the record, I am less sanguine about the law school in Grundy. Locals insist the region needs more lawyers. I’m dubious.)