Amherst College Uses STARS College Network to Recruit Rural Students, Expanding to 32 Schools

Colleges including Amherst College held a two-day visit in Amherst, Mass., where admitted rural high school seniors gathered around a fire pit outside the campus center to make s’mores as part of an effort to encourage enrollment.

“Leaving my home stresses me out more than Parcoursup, after all”

La Vie

Nathan Grove, the college’s assistant dean of admissions, joked, “This is our test of how rural you are, is how good you are at making a fire,” before he got the logs to ignite.

La Vie

The recruiting effort is called the STARS College Network, for Small Town and Rural Students, and it began three years ago with a push to get rural students to apply to selective colleges.

The program was primed with $20 million from Byron Trott, a wealthy Missouri-born alumnus and trustee of the University of Chicago, after he learned that only 3 percent of students at his alma mater were from rural places.

NPR and The Hechinger Report both describe how STARS has since expanded from 16 member schools to 32, and how more than 90,000 rural students applied last year, up 15 percent over the year before.

Marjorie Betley, deputy director of admissions at the University of Chicago and STARS’ executive director, said, “This process is moving into not just the ‘to college’ part but the ‘through college’ part,” as the campaign shifts from applications to attendance and graduation.

NPR reports that the work is now to get rural students to “actually show up on campus in the fall and graduate four years later,” after STARS helped increase applications.

NPR

The Hechinger Report says ninety percent of rural students graduate from high school, but only a little more than half go straight to college, citing the U.S. Department of Education and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

In Pennsylvania, Jack Hancock told NPR, “A lot of people don't think it's worth it,” describing skepticism among his classmates and their parents about whether college is worth it.

The Hechinger Report adds that Hancock’s brother went off to a private college last year, and his mother, Jodi, ordered the smallest-sized car window decal of the logo “so as not to draw attention.”

Betley told NPR that distrust can grow when colleges and universities “haven't been there for them,” and she said, “we haven't shown up, and we haven't shown them that we are people who you can trust.”

“To address the shortage of teachers, the Canadian Association of Immersion Education Professionals (ACPI) will distribute internship scholarships in rural and remote regions”

Radio-Canada

NPR reports that rural Americans are less likely than those in cities or suburbs to think college benefits students and more likely to believe it has a negative effect on political views and personal values, citing a new Quinnipiac University poll.

The Hechinger Report says private colleges can be hard to afford for rural households, whose median income the U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates is 12 percent lower than the national average, even after accounting for a lower cost of living.

Jack Hancock described how, on campus tours, “Certain ones would have a lot more higher-wealth suburban people,” and he said he drove with his parents to several campuses rather than flying.

The Hechinger Report also notes that STARS has agreed to recruit at rural high schools seldom visited by university admissions officers, after a 2019 study found those officers were more likely to show up at higher-income public and private high schools in cities and suburbs.