Investigating factors that influence rural student degree attainment at urban institutions.

Decades of research have shown that rural students attend college at rates lower than their non-rural peers. When they do attend college, they tend to stay closer to home. Considering that over two-thirds of higher education institutions in the United States are in urban areas, this presents two challenges—rural students limit their options for where to attend college, and urban institutions face difficulty attracting and retaining rural students. Very little quantitative research is available that explains what may make a rural student more likely to be successful at an urban institution or if the geographic origin of a student plays a role in attainment at all. Additionally, quantitative research on rural student success tends to rely on older data, limiting its applicability to new generations of students. Using the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS) 2012/17, I investigated what factors give rural students better odds of attaining their bachelor’s degrees within six years of starting at urban institutions and tested for interaction effects between geographic origin and the variables in the model. Data were entered into a hierarchical logistic regression model using Lauderdale and Heckman’s (2017) adaptation of Perna’s (2006) Student College Choice framework. Multiple variables, including first-generation status, rigorous high school coursework, and strong support from friends, significantly impacted attainment odds. While geographic origin did not have any significant interaction effects, rural students do appear to have key differences in their use of variables compared with non-rural students at urban colleges. This research fills a gap in rural student success at urban schools. Additionally, individual rural students can use these findings as a guide for considering urban institutions; rural communities can use the results to push for increased rigor and peer support; and urban institutions can better consider which rural students may be most successful or need additional support on their campuses.