Only 29 percent of college-age rural Americans are enrolled in college, far below the 47 percent rate of urban residents aged 18-24, says the New York Times, despite high graduation rates for rural high schools. “Given election results that turned up the volume on the concerns of rural Americans … higher education leaders are now talking about how to reach the hard-to-get-to.”
“All of a sudden rural is on everyone’s mind,” Kai Schafft, director of the Center on Rural Education and Communities at Penn State University, told the Times. The November general election called attention to a “passed over” portion of the country. Rural America covers more than 70 percent of U.S. land while containing 14 percent of the population. Rural areas tend to have lower rates of educational attainment than urban areas, along with lower incomes.
At Drexel University medical school includes, rural students are served by its diversity office. Clemson University offers special scholarships to students from rural areas. A Pomona College official told the Times that rural students offer a different perspective on political and social issues than do students from cities and suburbia. For some prospective students from rural areas, college is a larger decision than for their urban counterparts because they may have to give up the rural way of life to pursue an urban career.