Overshadowed by attention to the challenges faced by nonwhite high school graduates in cities, low-income black, Hispanic and Native American students in rural areas are equally unlikely to go on to college.

Rural students overall are more likely than the national average to graduate from high school in four years — 87 percent, compared to 83 percent nationwide. But rural Hispanics, blacks, Native American and other nonwhite students graduate at lower rates than the national average.

Only 77 percent of rural nonwhite students finish high school in four years, according to the Rural School and Community Trust. In some states, it says, the proportion is even lower.

Forty-two percent of people ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in all of higher education, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but only 29 percent of rural people in that age group are enrolled, compared to nearly 48 percent from cities.

The reasons are myriad, and often specific to a community or ethnic group. Recent immigrants can be stymied by language obstacles and indigenous groups by poverty and their remote locations far from colleges. In addition to the language issue, there is also what rural education leaders call the “brain drain” that creates a vicious cycle: Only the best and brightest go to college, and those graduates do not return to their rural hometowns to become the role models who might encourage other rural young people to attend college.

Read the full article about rural students college enrollment by Matt Krupnick at The Hechinger Report.