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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

College visits and test-prep workshops are the most help to rural students who want to attend college

College visits and workshops to prepare for exams like the American College Test seem to make the biggest difference in rural students' college enrollment rates, a new Mississippi State University study shows. The study was published in The Rural Educator, which is the official journal of the National Rural Education Association.

Researchers found campus visits and ACT workshops were overwhelmingly the factors with the most impact on college enrollment, reports Diette Courrege on Education Week's Rural Education blog. Rural students' average college-enrollment rate of 27 percent is far lower than the national average of 34 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Leaders of grant projects to increase college enrollment among rural students in rural Appalachian counties were asked to participate in the study. They listed several factors that didn't affect college-going of rural youth, but Courrege reports there's no common theme among them, which she wrote was surprising because other studies have found that financial aid, unpreparedness and low parental encouragement as barriers. (Read more)

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