The focus of this study is on the employment and training programs for the existing workforce. Kansas faces a challenge of bringing high wage, and thus high skill, jobs to rural as well as urban areas. This study has included rural communities in southeast and western Kansas for several reasons. It is important for rural communities to have highly skilled workers for firms to be competitive. If urban areas attract the high skill workers with high wage jobs, rural communities will be left with low wage jobs that compete in global markets based upon low wages rather than high skills. Incomes are already lower in rural communities, so rural communities need special attention to ensure that competition with other countries for jobs does not lead to lower standards of living. The outcome would be a state whose rural areas are poor compared to wealthier urban areas.