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Higher Education Access and Success of Rural Students

Ensuring College-going Advice is Relevant to Rural Populations

Authors

  • Karen M. Ganss University of Colorado Boulder
  • Ty McNamee Teachers College, Columbia University
  • Shadman Islem Boston College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3776/tpre.2022.v12n1p133-137

Keywords:

college access, college success, rural education, community-based organizations

Abstract

Despite the inclusion of “rural” in the title, Rural America’s Pathways to College and Career: Steps for Student Success and School Improvement covers content more specific to a particular college access organization than it does direct guidance on rural student achievement. In this review, the authors discuss areas of academia and college access where content of the book may be applied practically to some rural and other populations as well as caution readers to take a critical approach to claims made by author Rick Dalton. Authors conclude that although areas of the book offer practical advice for increasing access to college and career to underrepresented student populations in general, including rural students, there are deficit perspectives on rural people, places, and education presented that warrant more rural-relevant and strengths-based examples in order to more effectively contribute to the current literature on rural education.

Author Biographies

Karen M. Ganss, University of Colorado Boulder

Karen M. Ganss, MS, is a student affairs professional with the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, in Boulder, Colorado. She has a BA in business administration (2009) from Western Colorado University and a MS (2014) in college student services administration from Oregon State University. As a rural Colorado native and first-generation college student, both her research and professional passions surround increasing awareness and support of rural higher education students.

Ty McNamee, Teachers College, Columbia University

Ty McNamee, MA, is a doctoral candidate in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Concurrently, he serves as a Graduate Research Associate at the American Council on Education and Instructor in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program at Colorado State University. He holds a BA in English (2013) from the University of Wyoming and a MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs (2015) from the University of Connecticut. Growing up on a farm/ranch in rural Wyoming greatly influenced his research interests which focus on rurality and social class related to higher education, particularly college access and equity for rural students, as well as teaching and learning and faculty development at postsecondary institutions.

Shadman Islem, Boston College

Shadman Islem, MA, is a first-year doctoral student in Higher Education at Boston College. Prior to BC, he worked in Graduate Student Affairs at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds a BS in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (2017) from the University of Rochester, as well as an MA in Higher and Postsecondary Education (2018) from Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests are in spatial inequality and the geography of opportunity, shaped by his experiences as both a first-generation American and college student.

References

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Belkin, D. (2017, December 1). For colleges, a rural reckoning. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-colleges-a-rural-reckoning-1512159888.

Brilliant Pathways (2021). Where we work. CFES Brilliant Pathways. https://brilliantpathways.org/where-we-work/

Byun, S., Meece, J. L., & Agger, C. A. (2017). Predictors of college attendance patterns of rural youth. Research in Higher Education, 58(8), 817–842. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9449-z

Chambers, C. R. (2020). Let's give ‘em something to talk about: Spurring college conversations among rural students, schools, and families. In H. C. Green, B. S. Zugelder, & J. C. Manner (Eds.), Handbook of research on leadership and advocacy for children and families in rural poverty (pp. 279–294). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2787-0.ch013

Dalton, R. (2021). Rural America’s pathways to college and career: Steps for student success and school improvement. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003080268

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Means, D. R. (2019). Crucial support, vital aspirations: The college and career aspirations of rural black and Latinx middle school students in a community-and youth-based leadership program. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 35(1), 1–14. https://jrre.psu.edu/sites/default/files/2019-06/35-1.pdf

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Pappano, L. (2017, January 31). Colleges discover the rural student. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/education/edlife/colleges-discover-rural-student.html

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Published

2022-06-21 — Updated on 2022-06-27

Versions

How to Cite

Ganss, K. M. ., McNamee, T., & Islem, S. (2022). Higher Education Access and Success of Rural Students: Ensuring College-going Advice is Relevant to Rural Populations. Theory & Practice in Rural Education, 12(1), 133–137. https://doi.org/10.3776/tpre.2022.v12n1p133-137

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2022): Theory & Practice in Rural Education

Section

Book/Media Reviews

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Copyright (c) 2022 Karen M. Ganss, Ty McNamee, Shadman Islem

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Articles will be published using a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Sharealike license. (For more information on this license, please visit the Creative Commons license page.) Please also note that the authors are explicitly granting permission for Academic Library Services to store a copy of the article in The ScholarShip, ECU's Institutional Repository under the terms of the current ScholarShip license. As a North Carolina agency, ECU contributes copies of all publications to the North Carolina State Archives.