The demands on rural community colleges often go beyond academics when it comes to keeping students from dropping out of an institution.

Food, transportation, housing, health care, child care and broadband insecurities dominated the concerns addressed by college leaders at the Rural Community College Alliance national conference last week in Oklahoma City.

"Poverty in the rural community just looks different than poverty in urban areas," said Jared Reed, a doctoral student studying rural community colleges at Iowa State University and PACE lead navigator at Southeastern Community College in Iowa, "Trying to have a discussion about the importance of attending class falls to the back burner if a student is in survival mode. They may understand what you're saying, but they also haven't had anything to eat, or haven't had a shower in days because their power has been cut off."

The proportion of rural adults aged 25 and older with an associate's degree increased from 6 to 9 percent from 2000 to 2015. But the proportion of rural adults with some college and no degree also increased going from 20 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2015, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service.

Read the source article at Inside Higher Ed