Art and design education prepares students for careers that increasingly don't exist, and further compounds this issue by purveying the myth that these supposed opportunities exist in major cities where jobs are scarce and cost-of-living is overwhelming. While there are many potential reasons for this, the end result is that students, already saddled with an increased debt-load, are progressively destined to fail.

During the summer of 2012, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in partnership with the Bush Foundation engaged with two rural communities in the Western and Northern areas of Minnesota, USA, to develop meaningful partnerships that examine a variety of ways that art and design education can support a rural economy while at the same time presenting an alternate paradigm for how art/design education can present students with a more meaningful education based in real-world experiences.

This paper will demonstrate both the positives and negatives of working with and for communities through the presentation of two case studies. The first case study will examine how art and design can act as cultural and economic responder in the rural farming community of the Prairie Waters region of Western Minnesota. The second case study will show how art and design can support a pre-existing community structure in the Iron Range area of Northern Minnesota. Both case studies will include successes and failures of the projects, as well as examples of the final outcomes of the partnerships.