Small towns are shrinking across America, and along with them student populations. When a student population shrinks, so does a school’s state funding. But some rural and small town schools have found an inventive way to stay afloat by recruiting international students who pay up to $30,000 per year to attend an American public school — regardless of where in America that school is.

Skip Hults is superintendent of Adirondacks Village in Newcomb, New York, and one of the first public school administrators in the U.S. to recruit abroad.

Grant Vander Vorst is superintendent of the Grant-Deuel School in Revillo, South Dakota. His first international students came three years ago, but this year they make up nearly 20% of his students.