byJill Ament, Veronica Apodaca, Cristela Jones, Paula Levihn-Coon and Gabriella Ybarra
Despite Texas gaining more people than any other state in the past decade, more than half of its counties lost population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
During the past few decades, changes in agriculture and the boom-or-bust oil and gas industry have led to dwindling employment opportunities in rural Texas. Many young people leave rural communities after high school in search of economic and social opportunity, often never returning.
“You start seeing what I describe as kind of a net out-migration of young people who age up through high school in their community where they grew up. And if they want to go to post-secondary education or they want to work in a job that’s, you know, potentially higher paying, they’re going to have to move to a more urbanized area,” Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter said.
That loss of young people, Potter said, has left aging populations in rural communities.
byCristela Jones
Advocates for independent student journalism worry that greater university oversight opens the door to censorship by administrators unhappy with student newspapers’ in-depth reporting.
byMarina Garcia
Protesters Saturday in downtown San Antonio criticized the use of horse-drawn carriages as animal mistreatment.
bySamuel Stark
Central Texas counselors and psychologists who work with transgender adolescents say Texas politicians’ recent statements about trans therapy are an attempt to rile up voters at the cost of an extremely vulnerable community.