Duke joined 31 other elite institutions in the Small Town And Rural Students College Network, an organization that aims to support students from rural areas through their college admissions process at no cost.
Founded in April 2023 by a coalition of 16 American colleges, STARs works to support the 9.7 million high school students from rural America in enrolling in and graduating from college. According to its website, 29% of students from rural areas enroll in college, compared to 42% of students from metro areas, despite graduating high school at approximately the same rate.
“The trends [from smaller towns] tend to be that you go straight to work, or you drop out and then go to work,” said first-year engineering masters student Genesis Garay, who grew up in Hermitage, Arkansas — a city with a population of about 500 people. “We don’t have a lot of resources to really push us to do something other than [go to] smaller community colleges. If you’re trying to apply to a bigger and better university, you don't have [the same] assets as those students who come from a medium-sized, or even larger town.”
In the Class of 2027 First-Year Survey, The Chronicle reported that the majority of student respondents came from suburban areas and that the most common family income from students hailing from rural areas was between $40,000 to $80,000. This information is not made publicly available by the University.
Garay shared that although she wasn’t planning to apply to college throughout most of high school, she ended up deciding to attend Arkansas Tech University, rather than “going straight to work.” She specifically called on the user-friendliness of the institution’s website as playing a main role in her decision to apply.
“It was just like, click here, type your name here, give us this information,” she said. “That's the only one I applied to because it was just easy.”
Garay mentioned a shortage of resources available to students from rural areas. She called for “better counselors, better teachers … [and] a program to educate exactly what the value of an education was” to help students in navigating the college admissions process.
In light of those shortages, she emphasized that in-person events are especially valuable in rural areas since their access to technology can be limited. She attributed the success of the military in recruiting high school graduates from rural communities to its in-person recruitment efforts.
Since its founding, STARS member institutions have visited 1,100 rural high schools across 49 states, “directly engaging” with over 700,000 students in rural areas and welcoming 288,000 into its network.
The organization provides students with resources including summer pipeline programs, application workshops, on-campus visits and financial aid and scholarship guidance. STARS also partnered with Khan Academy and Schoolhouse to offer free math preparation, among other organizations such as the College Board.
Supported by an initial $20 million donation by Trott Family Philanthropies, STARS estimates that it will dedicate $7.4 billion to expanding upon these efforts in the coming decade.
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