Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges

There is limited research on rural-serving postsecondary institutions. However, these institutions are essential to the educational opportunities of rural students and the vitality of rural communities. One barrier to research is the absence of an evidence-based definition of what it means to be a “rural-serving institution.” This project developed a metric for identifying rural-serving postsecondary institutions and offers a range of publicly available data products and tools to promote research about these critical institutions.