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The Daily Tar Heel

Expectations and funding for schools hinders rural students

Recently, I took my roommate home with me. We drove the five hours across North Carolina, through curvy mountain roads to my hometown in the western part of our state. I spent the weekend driving on back roads, showing her my rural hometown. At one point on my tour she remarked, “So, it was a big deal freshman year when you came to Chapel Hill.”

That statement could not be more spot-on. For many, Chapel Hill is a not a “real city,” and for others, UNC was a second choice. But for me and many students from my area, UNC was a seemingly unreachable goal. Anyone who was outside the top 10 of our class or didn’t take all six of our AP classes figured they wouldn’t even have a chance.

But I was accepted. There are currently four of us from my high school enrolled at UNC. It was not an unreachable goal — we worked hard just like everyone else accepted here. However, we were not afforded many of the opportunities that urban high schools offer their students.

Our state ranks in the bottom 10 for per pupil funding, according to the N.C. State Board of Education. This means that rural areas do not have the funding that exists in metropolitan areas.

For rural students, this disparity in funding and fewer extracurricular activities is an obstacle for applying to college. How can rural students compete for well-roundedness when they lack the variety of programs that is offered to urban students?

Expectations for students also differ enormously than those for urban areas. Only the “smartest” students expect to be accepted to a four-year college. For others, their only expectation is employment.

I know parents who expect their children to have an independent income by 18, and it is common in my town to be married by the old age of 22.

To illustrate this, compare the graduation intentions for my rural Macon County to urban Mecklenburg County. According to the State Board of Education, in Macon, 35.1 percent of students said they intended to attend college; whereas that percentage was 54.3 in Mecklenburg.

This 19-point difference is the disparity between incomes and rural and urban expectations for students’ futures. It can be difficult for other students to comprehend a world where college is the exception, not the rule. Being born in a rural county should not mean you do not have the opportunity to go to a four-year college. I hope this can someday be the reality for everyone.

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