Extensive litigation over the nation’s opioid crisis came to a close in June 2025, when the attorneys general of forty-nine states approved a $7.4-billion settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family. According to Ohio attorney general Dave Yost, the state—along with many counties and cities—will receive up to $198 million from the settlement.
The epidemic has been especially devastating in rural America, where resources for public and mental health are already scarce. Having grown up in Ohio’s Appalachian region, I can’t help but see myself reflected in the staggering drug and suicide statistics. Anyone familiar with Southeast Ohio knows that the area is marked by the despair and nihilism that so often accompany drug abuse, poverty, and untreated mental-health challenges.
I consider myself fortunate not to have become another tragic statistic. For all the criticism that community colleges often receive, it was my community-college education that allowed me to escape the fate that so many of my peers could not.
Community college was the key to my intellectual freedom and the path that helped me leave a region many others lack the resources to escape. Through Ohio’s 1989 Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program, I and other high-school students were able to attend community college tuition-free while earning both college and high-school credits.
Community college was the key to my intellectual freedom.
During my junior and senior years of high school, I took classes at Washington State Community College (now Washington State College of Ohio) and graduated with two associate’s degrees before receiving my high-school diploma. I couldn’t have known it then, but choosing to participate in that program changed the course of my life.
My high-school education was dismal. Rural Ohio public schools did little to prepare students for a meaningful career and, for many, only fueled the cycle of Appalachian poverty and drug addiction. I remember spending weeks each semester, in multiple classes, doing little more than playing Uno or watching comedy skits on YouTube.
The few teachers who tried to take our classes seriously rarely lasted more than a few years at Frontier High and Middle School in New Matamoras, Ohio. I suspect that many became disillusioned while chasing the student-loan forgiveness offered to those willing to endure low-income districts with limited resources and largely disengaged students. Even those who stayed longer often made it clear that they viewed teaching at my high school as a stepping stone to a position in a better-funded school.
The poor quality of education in rural Ohio was compounded by limited access to the outside world. My parents’ home still lacks reliable cell service and cable television, and when I was in high school it didn’t even have high-speed internet.
The nearest town, Marietta, was eleven miles from the house where I grew up, and the closest airport was two hours away. As the world moved forward, my community and I were left behind—without any real way of even knowing it.
Only a handful of students from my fifty-four-person graduating class went on to earn a degree from a four-year university. Most of my classmates attended the local adult technical-training center as an alternative to spending all day on the high-school campus. There, they earned certificates in fields such as auto mechanics, carpentry, and patient healthcare while completing their high-school diplomas.
Starting community college at sixteen was intimidating. Adjusting to the schedule, the syllabi, and the expectations of real professors took time. I came in with many disadvantages. Some of my PSEO classmates from other high schools already had a solid grasp of algebra and chemistry—subjects I hadn’t mastered. I was playing catch-up in nearly every class, even compared to my high-school-aged peers. But what I lacked in preparation, I made up for with determination, grit, and a natural intellectual curiosity.
My parents had encouraged me early in high school to consider PSEO, and, long before I was born, they had resolved that I would be the first in our family to graduate from college. My motivation for joining the PSEO program was different. I was eager for the chance to learn things I had never encountered in high school. In my parents’ basement, next to the woodstove, an entirely new world was opening to me. I read Voltaire and Kafka, sketched organic structures, and finally learned what “Western Civilization” meant. I even took a logic course. I wasn’t very good at it, but I remember thinking, “I don’t know what this is, but I want more.”
Everything was new, exciting, and exhilarating. I pushed myself harder than ever before, largely because, for the first time, I was being taken seriously—treated as if I could learn, grow, and make something of my life.
My parents also encouraged me to join other state-funded college-prep programs offered in high schools, such as Educational Talent Search (ETS) and Upward Bound. These programs were designed to help low-income students gain access to and prepare for college. Yet several program directors discouraged me from studying political science or philosophy. One even told me, “I have a degree in political science, and I can’t find a job in my field.”
I couldn’t shake the feeling that they believed none of us hillbillies—or hillbetties—were cut out for more contemplative pursuits.
For the first time, I was encouraged to ask questions instead of regurgitating something I had memorized.
It was the professors at Washington State Community College who pushed me to pursue these studies. In the classes of one professor in particular, Mr. Ritter, I began to see how different a classical education was from the “model” of schooling I had experienced before.
I came to realize the beauty of the liberal arts. The ability to study diverse topics across disciplines fostered a natural sense of intellectual curiosity. For the first time, I was encouraged to ask questions instead of regurgitating something I had memorized to pass a test.
Mr. Ritter encouraged me to apply to the Ashbrook Scholar program at Ashland University—something I would never have discovered had I stayed in my high-school classes. The Ashbrook Scholar program centered on Socratic discussion, with nearly all of our reading drawn from primary sources.
Mr. Ritter gave me a piece of advice: Pursue an education in what interests you, and the rest will fall into place. I’m grateful that I listened. At my high school, I was told that, if I were to insist on pursuing an education, I should pursue a major that resembled technical training.
My world in Ohio was very small. It was impossible for me to imagine what I could ever do with a degree in the humanities. The horizon of my experience suggested that there were just a few types of jobs that required a four-year degree—nurses, teachers, doctors, and lawyers. I ended up studying political science and philosophy, which taught me how to think and how to write. It shaped my understanding of the world. Contrary to popular belief, studying the humanities and the liberal arts did not leave me homeless or near poverty. It opened up my world. I never would have guessed that, less than ten years after graduation, I’d be working for a global figure like Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AHA Foundation.
Purdue Pharma targeted rural Appalachia once it became clear that a mix of social factors made the region a lucrative market for opioids. The despair, poverty, Medicaid dependence, longstanding struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, and severe lack of public and mental-health resources were all easy to see. Purdue saw these risk factors and chose to cash in.
For years, commentators, policymakers, and politicians have tried to explain Appalachia’s vulnerability to opioids. Too often, they fall back on calling Appalachians “lazy” or “bored”—a tired and cheap stereotype. When you grow up surrounded by these challenges, however, it’s easy not to notice them. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but it wasn’t until several years after I left the Mid-Ohio Valley that I fully recognized the depth of the region’s problems, seeing them from the outside looking in.
The Mid-Ohio Valley is not the only place beset by these problems. Encouraging access to quality education, especially one based in the liberal arts, won’t fix all the problems affecting Appalachia. However, without serious reform there can be little hope for the region. Every student—regardless of family income or where they live—should have access to an education that inspires them and sparks a hunger to experience the world. Education was my way out of poverty, intellectual and otherwise. It can be the way out for others, too.
Morgan Miller is education and alumni outreach director at the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Foundation.