Playing with Miami now. Small-towns are tough. When I graduated from Chester I went into the military, and then on to big city PD. I was able to retire (still working though), switch to a different agency and we moved back. The disparity between the pay from this county and Beaumont (for law enforcement) is roughly $23K starting, and at Beaumont your pay progresses but the county pay stays the same. With all that said though, a small school education is what you make of it. In my class of 19, there was a chemical engineer, a financial-aid director at a university, several successful business owners, a bank VP in Houston, several teachers and civil servants. You are more involved (sports, UIL events, Ag, etc) and have all the opportunities you want. I loved it.