Why is rural or 1st gen a hook rather than just low income?

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the social engineering trend toward rural and first generation. I understand in low income being a hook and completely agree that pulling yourself out of poverty and succeeding with tutors, high performing peers etc is an accomplishment in itself.

I don’t understand how a low income kid who has one parent with a degree but is still low income is less worthy than a wealthy kid whose parents didn’t go to college. Some schools even define first generation as not having a US four year degree. Are the wealthy kids of parents with Oxford, top universities in India, Korea, China degrees or parents who dropped out and found $$$ in tech, entertainment, sports or small businesses really in need of a boost over the kid living off school lunches, working to help pay rent but has a parent with a degree?

Why is rural the new big thing? It’s not just pulling kids from states that send fewer kids. This has always been a thing. It’s now such a hook that rural is giving a boost to rural zip codes in states that are highly represented. The kicker is that being at a low middle income in a low COL rural area provides for a far nicer standard stand of living than being low mid income in a high COL.

Universities do not do things for altruistic reasons. What is driving these new hooks?

[Anonymous]

As far as the second paragraph of course those kids whose parents graduated from top overseas universities and are wealthy don't need a boost. But the universities want their full tuition and donations from their parents.

[Anonymous]

My husband was rural and first generation. I think part of it is that it's significantly harder to navigate the system or find someone who knows how to navigate the system in those contexts. The college counselors at those rural schools don't know the ins and outs and being rural you have to travel a lot farther to find the mentorship programs and similar other kids get.

First generation kids are also more likely to drop out and feel like they don't belong in college. This happened to my own mom who was first generation, she was devastated and felt.like she didn't fit in college because of a couple Bs. She didn't have the context to understand she was doing great. She took a semester off and was going to enroll in a local school and that counselor there set her straight and sent her back to her college. That counselor at the regional school saved my mom's education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As far as the second paragraph of course those kids whose parents graduated from top overseas universities and are wealthy don't need a boost. But the universities want their full tuition and donations from their parents.

No these aren’t international kids, these are US citizen kids whose highly educated parents immigrated and naturalized. These are great families but in terms of knowledge about navigating the system and getting their kids resources to succeed they are light years ahead of the family with one degree but very little career, financial success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband was rural and first generation. I think part of it is that it's significantly harder to navigate the system or find someone who knows how to navigate the system in those contexts. The college counselors at those rural schools don't know the ins and outs and being rural you have to travel a lot farther to find the mentorship programs and similar other kids get.

First generation kids are also more likely to drop out and feel like they don't belong in college. This happened to my own mom who was first generation, she was devastated and felt.like she didn't fit in college because of a couple Bs. She didn't have the context to understand she was doing great. She took a semester off and was going to enroll in a local school and that counselor there set her straight and sent her back to her college. That counselor at the regional school saved my mom's education.

I definitely got a boost when I was applying because of my rural location (and this was twenty-five years ago), and yes. My high school counselors saw maybe one student a year who was interested in a school more selective than our in-state flagship which accepted like 50% of in-state applicants. It was doable; I have supportive parents and it was after the internet was a thing, so it was doable, but I was on my own there. My parents had no idea that colleges were selective, even if you were smart, and my counselor's role was basically just to send transcripts and do schedules (we didn't have separate college counselors). It was the summer between my sophomore and junior years when I learned that colleges care about extracurriculars, for example.

I don't know what my college got out of it, but I'm glad they did it.

[Anonymous]

It's not that your college directly got something out of it. More like, your peers got to interact and learn with someone from a different geographic background, which has educational value in itself. Learning doesn't happen only in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Because growing up rural and having an understanding of rural life is a worthwhile addition to the campus. I grew up rural but not low income or 1st gen and I was stunned how ignorant my college classmates were about rural issues and rural culture. (As distinct from red state culture or conservativism, which are not the same). It's part of how a university should have a lot of variety so people can learn from each other.

[Anonymous]

Also, this isn't even slightly a new thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the social engineering trend toward rural and first generation. I understand in low income being a hook and completely agree that pulling yourself out of poverty and succeeding with tutors, high performing peers etc is an accomplishment in itself.

I don’t understand how a low income kid who has one parent with a degree but is still low income is less worthy than a wealthy kid whose parents didn’t go to college. Some schools even define first generation as not having a US four year degree. Are the wealthy kids of parents with Oxford, top universities in India, Korea, China degrees or parents who dropped out and found $$$ in tech, entertainment, sports or small businesses really in need of a boost over the kid living off school lunches, working to help pay rent but has a parent with a degree?

Why is rural the new big thing? It’s not just pulling kids from states that send fewer kids. This has always been a thing. It’s now such a hook that rural is giving a boost to rural zip codes in states that are highly represented. The kicker is that being at a low middle income in a low COL rural area provides for a far nicer standard stand of living than being low mid income in a high COL.

Universities do not do things for altruistic reasons. What is driving these new hooks?

Nobody does this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband was rural and first generation. I think part of it is that it's significantly harder to navigate the system or find someone who knows how to navigate the system in those contexts. The college counselors at those rural schools don't know the ins and outs and being rural you have to travel a lot farther to find the mentorship programs and similar other kids get.

First generation kids are also more likely to drop out and feel like they don't belong in college. This happened to my own mom who was first generation, she was devastated and felt.like she didn't fit in college because of a couple Bs. She didn't have the context to understand she was doing great. She took a semester off and was going to enroll in a local school and that counselor there set her straight and sent her back to her college. That counselor at the regional school saved my mom's education.

+2

My friend's husband was also first generation and rural, and has described how absolutely overwhelmed and isolated he felt trying to navigate what was a wholly foreign system (to him) with no community able to assist. He went on to get two degrees and is now a farmer (ironically?).

[Anonymous]

Some people judge colleges on social mobility. US News does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the social engineering trend toward rural and first generation. I understand in low income being a hook and completely agree that pulling yourself out of poverty and succeeding with tutors, high performing peers etc is an accomplishment in itself.

I don’t understand how a low income kid who has one parent with a degree but is still low income is less worthy than a wealthy kid whose parents didn’t go to college. Some schools even define first generation as not having a US four year degree. Are the wealthy kids of parents with Oxford, top universities in India, Korea, China degrees or parents who dropped out and found $$$ in tech, entertainment, sports or small businesses really in need of a boost over the kid living off school lunches, working to help pay rent but has a parent with a degree?

Why is rural the new big thing? It’s not just pulling kids from states that send fewer kids. This has always been a thing. It’s now such a hook that rural is giving a boost to rural zip codes in states that are highly represented. The kicker is that being at a low middle income in a low COL rural area provides for a far nicer standard stand of living than being low mid income in a high COL.

Universities do not do things for altruistic reasons. What is driving these new hooks?

Nobody does this.

Look at this Georgetown discussion of the ambiguity of the term first gen. Schools absolutely do this.

https://feed.georgetown.edu/access-affordability/who-is-considered-a-first-generation-college-student/

[Anonymous]

Mostly FGLI is to get around affirmative action bans.

Rural, there aren't that many so that it gives the perception of do-goodness.

[Anonymous]

In CA rural is a proxy point for Hispanic. Target overwhelmingly Hispanic schools in rural districts, give sizeable boost, increase your Hispanic admits by double digits. UCs are the masters of using race for admissions without using race for admissions.

[Anonymous]

My friend went to a complete no-name college and got a degree and has generally been in jobs that don't really require a college degree. Spouse did not go to college. They do fine financially. Their child is super smart and was targeting Ivy-type schools.

I commented when the child was applying to college that they would have been better off if the parent hadn't gone to college at all as they might have been placed in a different bucket (not that there was anything they could do about this). Child didn't get into target Ivy and ended up in an honors program at their flagship state university, which likely was the best outcome anyway.

Long story short, this binary of "parents went to college" doesn't make a lot of sense, nor do many of these other efforts to social engineer things. I a very supportive of diversity but it seems like many schools are now trying way too hard.