Rural Schools

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The most widely used sources of college information for students in rural schools were parents, friends, teachers, and school counselors, according to an article in the spring Journal of

Counseling & Development.

The study draws on a national sample of more than 8,000 rural students ages 14 to 18 from geographically and socioeconomically diverse towns. It found that older students were more likely

than students in lower grades to look outside their informal social networks for making academic decisions.

Female students were more likely than male students to use multiple sources. Black and Hispanic students were less likely to go to a wide variety of sources, but they were more likely to

solicit teachers’ input. Hispanic students were the least likely of any ethnic or racial group to seek out information from any source, and low-income rural students were more likely to go

to teachers for information, according to the study.

A version of this article appeared in the July 13, 2011 edition of Education Week as Rural Schools