Dive Brief
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Students living in rural areas aren’t mentioned much in conversations about college affordability, access and underrepresentation, but that's changing in some places, says advocates. In an era when these students often are overlooked in the college admissions process and because many remain weary of the price of a private education, Minnesota's private colleges and universities are committing to recruiting and retaining learners from rural locations, according to the Minn Post.
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For Minnesota institutions, attracting students from rural areas is less about polarized politics, which has some elite colleges recruiting more rural-based conservative students to bridge political divisions — it’s more about reducing barriers to a college education that are common among first-generation and underrepresented groups.
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Scholarships offered by Minnesota private colleges help students from rural communities overcome the fear of leaving home and the intimidation factor associated with attending a private institution in urban areas. While on campus, administrators say they pay closer attention to these students and are ensuring support services can respond to their particular needs and concerns.
Dive Insight
Even though rural high schools tend to have high graduation rates, their students are the least likely to attend and complete college. Research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows less than 20% of adults living in rural areas over age 25 have a college degree. The same report goes on to say the rural-urban gap in college completion is expanding.
Closing this gap and getting more students from rural areas to finish college is a regional imperative. According to a federal report, “Educational attainment is highly correlated with measures of regional economic prosperity. Rural counties with the lowest levels of educational attainment face higher poverty, child poverty, unemployment and population loss than other rural counties.”
Empirically, non-college-educated rural-area workers still could get decent paying jobs in factories or on farms. But that work is dissipating fast, and many of the jobs being created require a college degree or specialized training.