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For America’s colleges, recruiting more rural students could be one way to diversify their campuses in the wake of a Supreme Court ban on race-conscious admissions. Students from small towns can bring different experiences, perspectives, and values to the classroom than their urban counterparts. That’s why a group of elite and flagship colleges is trying to grow its ranks of rural students. The coalition , Small Town and Rural Students College Network, or STARS, recently doubled in size, to 32 colleges. It has sent representatives to more than 2,000 small-town high schools in 50 states in the past year.

Closing the longstanding college attainment gap between rural communities and the rest of the country won’t be easy. Barely a fifth of rural adults over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 35% of nonrural adults. In many small-town high schools, “college is more the exception than the expectation,” says Ms. Betley. “It’s not built into the fabric of the school.”

When college is promoted or encouraged by rural schools, it’s often only for the highest-achieving students, says Crystal Chambers, a professor of educational leadership at East Carolina University, who has studied the influence of teachers on rural students’ aspirations. This can lead the remaining students to underestimate their academic potential and rule out college, she says.

In families where neither parent has been to college, students can be left to navigate complicated admissions and financial aid processes on their own. Rural schools are also less likely than urban and suburban ones to offer advanced math – a requirement for admission to many top colleges. Meanwhile, a growing number of rural students are questioning the return on a costly degree and choosing work over college. At Plymouth Regional High School, which draws its 660 students from eight small towns, students now talk proudly about entering a trade and making good money sooner, counselors say.

Those students who are willing to postpone a paycheck for the promise of higher earnings down the road tend to pick cheaper options, like Plymouth State University, a mile from the high school, or the University of New Hampshire. Even with its generous financial aid, it can be hard for Dartmouth to compete with the state’s flagship university, which is free for some low-income students, Mr. Koff acknowledges.