Elite colleges begin recruiting more in rural towns; some students are interested, but many will opt to stay near home

A University of Chicago recruiter from Maine speaks at a
college fair in rural Tenn. (Photo by Austin Anthony, THR)

For years, rural high school students were rarely visited by recruiters from highly selective universities, but that trend is changing, with schools such as MIT and Yale seeking students from rural places. While some students are excited about the opportunities, others are saying "no thanks," reports Jon Marcus for The Hechinger Report. The recruitment is "part of an effort to pay more attention to rural America, where students are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to go to college and, if they do, more likely to drop out."

There's a disconnect between high school and college for rural students. "Rural students graduate from high school at a higher rate (90 percent) than their counterparts in cities (82 percent) and suburbs (89 percent). But only 55 percent go directly to college," Marcus writes. A new consortium called STARS, or Small Town and Rural Students College Network, is working to bridge the rural-to-college gap.

STARS has 16 top colleges and universities participating in its program, which provides schools with financial assistance for travel and staffing needs. Some STARS schools went to Crossville, Tennessee, pop. 12,000, to recruit from an area they had never visited. Karen Hicks, a lead counselor at Crossville's Stone Memorial High School, told Marcus: "They've never come and taken an interest in us. But the big thing right now is rural, and they're finally seeing it, I guess. I love it in the sense that it gives our kids opportunities. I hate that they didn't see it before."

Despite the recruitment efforts, some rural students will choose to remain close to home. Laura Kidwell, another Stone Memorial school counselor, told Marcus, "Even the ones that have the higher scores, that can survive at some of the more prestigious colleges, they like it here, and they don't necessarily want to leave. They want to be within driving distance from home and their family and friends."

"Rural students often face cultural differences at universities that mostly enroll people from other backgrounds, said Corinne Smith, an associate director of admissions at Yale," Marcus reports. "Smith is also the advisor to the Rural Student Alliance at Yale, formed five years ago to help rural students feel more of a sense of belonging. When the group was started, she suggested social activities such as apple-picking." But the students, who may come from a town with one traffic light, asked for "help getting used to the unaccustomed urban traffic noise outside their dorms or off-campus apartments and for town tours to get to know their surroundings better."