Urban–rural background disparities and their impact on college students' academic outcomes

By embedding urban-rural background disparities into an analytical framework of college students' academic outcomes and jointly considering family-, individual-, and societal-level factors, this study extends the existing literature. Within the limits of a cross-sectional observational design, the findings clarify the associational structure linking family background, individual learning characteristics, and academic performance at the university level, and offer policy-relevant insights for improving learning conditions for rural students and promoting educational equity.